Transparency - philosophy of community oversight

The
United States has passed a law to put a Democrat at one side
of the ballot-box in the great cities, and a Republican at the
other side; and it empowers those two men, not to control the
election, but to stand there as eyes of the government and look, —
look first to see that the ballot-box is empty when they begin, and then into the face of every man who votes; and, if he
comes twice to vote, record it, have him brought before the
judge, and sent to the penitentiary for his crime. The two men
are to stay there until the polls are closed, and not allow the
ballot-boxes to be sent off and the vote to be counted in secret
by partisan judges, but cause it to be opened and the votes to
be counted in the light of day, recorded, and certified to by the
Republican and Democratic officers, so that the purity of the
ballot-box shall not be outraged and freedom shall not be slain.
No juster law than that was ever passed on this continent.
It saved New York from the supremest of crimes. It elicited,
even from a Democratic committee of which A. V. Rice was
a member, the highest possible encomium in 1876. And he
and S. S. Cox, of New York, in an official report to Congress,
recommended to all parts of the country the admirable election
law of Congress that brought into unison and co-operation the
officers of the State and the officers of the nation, in keeping a
pure ballot and a free election in the great cities. That is what
the Democratic party said of this law in 18/6. But their masters
of the caucus had not then given out their decree. They
have now given it; the decree from the secret caucus, the decree
from their old slave-masters, has now gone forth: " Take
those two men away from the ballot-box; wipe out the election
law, so that the Tweeds of New York and the Eph Hollands
of Cincinnati may have free course to do the work and ' fix'
1880 in their own way." That is the programme of the Rebel
brigadiers in Congress.

Garfield, James Abram, and Burke Aaron Hinsdale. 1882. The Works of James Abram Garfield. J.R. Osgood and Company, 768

Purity of the Ballot

"The verdict of every one who saw its work in Buffalo at time last election, even of those who were originally opposed to the introduction of the machines, was that it had solved tine question of the purity of the ballot iii a most effective way.”

Albert Shaw, The American Monthly Review of Reviews (Review of Reviews, 1897): 277.

Mr. CAMP. I am in favor of having something in the election
laws which will secure the secrecy of the ballot. During the last
month or so I have been looking into a system which does away
with ballots entirely and provides an entirely new method, which
is absolutely secret and does away with all solicitation at the polls,
and it seems to me is an almost perfect voting system and an improvement
on the Australian system. The Legislature, in order
to carry out the provisions of this substitute would be obliged to
pass something like the Australian bill. While I am in favor of"
the Australian system, I don't want to fix it so that the Legislature
cannot adopt an improvement on it if there is one found.
Mr. PARSONS of Morton. The system the gentleman refers
to is very well in theory. It is a machine, and if the least thing
gets out of order with it the whole thing would be thrown out and.
you would have to have a new election."

OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE FIRST CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION
OF NORTH DAKOTA,ASSEMBLED IN THE CITY OF BISMARCK,JULY 4th TO AUG. 17th, 1889. Bismarck, SD: Tribune, State Printers, 1889.

New York laws relating to voting machines

Constitutional History of New York

The ballot machine
as a device for voting had been in use a short time
in some parts of the state, and many believed that it could
be made a satisfactory substitute for the paper ticket for
use at elections. The legislature of 1892, by chapter
127, had authorized the use of the "Myers automatic
ballot cabinet" at town meetings, and in 1893, by chapter
82, this provision was added to the town law. The
legislature of 1894, by chapter 764, extended the field of
operation of the ballot machine from town meetings to
general elections. In counties where one half or more
of the towns had authorized the use of the machine at
town meetings the board of supervisors might also authorize
its use at all elections held in such towns, and in
cities, except New York and Brooklyn, the use of the
machine at all elections might be authorized by the common
council. This law was approved by the Governor
on the 24th of May, at which time the Convention was
in session and several amendments to article 2 had already
been introduced. Some members of the Conven- [109] tion, in view of the provision of the section that all elections
shall be by ballot, doubted the power of the legislature
to extend the use of the ballot machine to general
elections. Perhaps Governor Flower shared this doubt,
although he signed the bill, for, according to a statement
by Mr. Phipps, in the debate on the amendment, hereafter
noted, the Governor, during the preceding winter,
had expressed to him the hope that the Convention "
would devise some means or plan by which the Executive
could constitutionally approve of measures extending the
methods of voting."
On the 29th of May, five days after the act of 1894
took effect, Mr. Chipp introduced an amendment to § 5
in the following form: "All elections by the citizens shall
be by ballot, or by such other means as may be authorized
by the legislature, provided that secrecy in voting be preserved,
and the right of suffrage be not restricted." The •
following amendments to § 5 were also introduced by
Mr. Hill, June 7: "All elections by the citizens shall be
by ballot, or by the use of a voting apparatus, as prescribed
by law, except for such town officers as may by
law be directed to be otherwise chosen;" by Mr. Foote,
June 15 : "All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot,
except for such town officers as may by law be directed
to be otherwise chosen; it being understood that the term '
ballot' includes any method of voting authorized by law,
which shall secure an equal opportunity to freely vote in
secrecy." The following amendments not relating to
voting machines were also introduced by Mr. Dean,
May 22: "All elections by the citizens of this state shall
be by ballot, except for such town officers as may by law
be directed to be otherwise chosen, but no citizen shall be
compelled to use a ballot containing the names of persons
for whom he does not desire to vote, nor shall he
be compelled to take cognizance of any other ballot than the one which he offers at the polling place at which he
is legally entitled to vote." This guaranteed to every
voter the right to prepare his own ballot. By Mr. Lau-
terbach, June 26: "All elections by the citizens, except
for such town officers as may by law be directed to be
otherwise chosen, shall be by ballot. A single ballot containing
the names of all candidates nominated for each
election district shall be furnished by public authority to
the voters at the polls, and marked by each voter in private,
and then and there deposited. The word 'elections'
in this section includes the decision of questions submitted
to the voters as well as the choice of officers by
them. The legislature shall enact all necessary laws to
enforce this provision, and shall provide by law that persons
who, by reason of blindness or other physical disability,
are unable to make their ballots as herein required,
or to enter the voting booth without assistance,
shall have the necessary aid, through election officers belonging
to and representing different political parties,
provided that such disability shall, when then existing,
be specified by the voter under oath at the time of registration."
The committee on suffrage used Mr. Hill's amendment
as the basis of its report, combining with it Mr. Chipp's
amendment, expressing substantially the same idea with
the additional provision relating to secrecy in voting.
The new section, as reported by the committee, was stated
in the following form: "
All elections by the citizens, except for such town officers
as may by law be directed to be otherwise chosen, shall be by
ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law,
provided that secrecy in voting be preserved."
Mr. Hill opened the debate on the amendment in an instructive speech, in which he elucidated the meaning of
the word "ballot" and expressed doubt whether the use
of "mechanical devices, known as voting machines, in
general state elections," could be deemed voting by ballot.
He emphasized the provision which preserved secrecy in
voting. Advocating the use of voting machines, Mr.
Hill said: "The inventive talent of the age is being
directed toward the perfection, among other tilings, of
such mechanical devices. The results thus far obtained
warrant the assumption that, before the lapse of another
generation, they will have been so perfected, and so generally
adopted throughout the country, as to supersede
almost entirely the present cumbersome and expensive
method of voting by 'ballot.' Provision should now be
made to admit of an adjustment of the manner of our
elections to the improved methods of voting thus likely
to come into use." Mr. Chipp moved to amend the section,
as reported, by substituting the amendment introduced
by him. Commenting on this he called attention
to the provision in his amendment that the right of suffrage
should' not be restricted, and said he understood
that the Myers machine did not permit an elector to vote
for whom he chose, but that he could only vote for the
candidates named in the machine; it therefore restricted
his choice, and Mr. Chipp thought the legislature
should not have power to authorize any method of voting
which would restrict freedom of choice by the voter. Mr.
Hawley proposed to state the section in the following
form: "All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot,
except for such officers as may by law be directed to be
otherwise chosen." Mr. Lincoln objected to the use of
voting machines, saying he had "rather trust a man than
a machine." He also thought that the provision relating
to secrecy in voting was unnecessary, if not impracticable ;
that there had not been and could not be absolute [112] secrecy in voting, and that if the provision were rigidly
enforced many voters would be disfranchised. Mr.
Lincoln also thought that the voting machine provision
could not be applied in elections for members of Congress,
for the reason that the Federal statutes required those
officers to be chosen by "written or printed ballot," and
that the operation of the machine would not be a compliance
with this provision. Mr. Mereness objected to
the voting machine amendment, because he said it might
authorize the legislature to compel the use of the voting
machine by the five thousand election districts in the state,
at an expense of some two millions of dollars.
While the amendment was under discussion, Mr. Hill,
after consulting with several delegates interested in cognate
amendments, moved to amend the section by striking
out the last phrase—"secrecy in voting be preserved"—
and substituting for it the phrase "an opportunity
freely to vote in secrecy be preserved." Mr.
Chipp thereupon withdrew his amendment. Mr. Haw-
ley thought the several amendments had made the section
obscure, and again urged the adoption of the form proposed
by him, already quoted. Mr. Lincoln thought it
hardly worth while to mention the word "ballot" in the
provision if the legislature might authorize another
method of voting; he therefore proposed to state the section
in the following form: "All elections by the citizens
shall be by such method as may be prescribed by law." "
That," he said, "will give the legislature the right to
prescribe a ballot," or some other method. "If we are
to let down the bars and take away these privileges of
an election by ballot, and permit some other method,
then we do not need to use both methods in the alternative,
and mention both in the provision itself." Mr.
Hawley thought this amendment would preclude "the
legislature from passing a law which shall allow certain [113] officers to be elected by the use of a balloting machine,
and certain other officers to be elected by ballot." Mr.
Dean said he thought the Convention was "trenching
upon very dangerous ground" by undertaking to extend
to the legislature the power to discriminate as to, and
further to manipulate, the ballot of this state. "In the
last ten years we have been going through a process of
mechanical reform,—trying to make people good by
machinery." Mr. Moore and Mr. Foote objected to Mr.
Lincoln's amendment, because it did not provide for
secrecy in voting. Mr. Marshall thought the amendment
would overturn the established system of voting by ballot,
and permit the legislature to re-establish viva voce
voting, and thus deprive the voter of his right to secret
and independent action at the polls. Mr. Doty proposed
the section in the following form: "All elections by the
citizens, except for such town officers as may be by law
directed to be otherwise chosen, shall be by ballot, or by
such secret method as may be prescribed by law;" and
Mr. Forbes as follows: "All elections shall be by ballot
or by other secret method, except for such town officers
as may by law be directed to be otherwise chosen."
Without voting on any of the proposed amendments to
the section as reported by the committee on suffrage, the
whole subject was referred back to that committee for
further consideration. The committee reported the section
again in its original form, as first reported. When
the amendment was taken up again Mr. Dean said he
was "entirely opposed to this system of mechanical reform,"
and that he was "opposed to letting down the bars
of the legislature to make another experiment in ballot
reform, either by machine or otherwise." Mr. Foote
thought the voting machines would reduce frauds at
elections by preventing the "stuffing of the ballot box,"
and also materially diminish the labor and delay of can- [114] vassing the result. Mr. Titus said the proposed amendment
would make a voter a mere "automaton," and he
objected to the use of a machine, which might easily get
out of repair, and be unfit for service on election day.
The committee of the whole rejected a motion by Mr. J. I.
Green to strike out the last part of the section which
permitted methods of voting otherwise than by ballot,
and recommended the adoption of the amendment. Mr.
Andrew H. Green supported the amendment, and in his
remarks quoted from Charles O'Conor, a distinguished,
member of the Convention of 1846, and whom Mr.
Green described as the "ablest lawyer that this country
has ever produced, and a statesman of large experience,"
the opinion that "an accurate register and equally plain
and responsible voting, with no complex contrivances
between the people, and direct accountability of the chief
public officials, at proximate elections, present the true
expression of the democratic idea of popular suffrage.
The viva voce system of voting should be re-established;
the voter should qualify his ballot by reading and declaring
his vote."
The debate on this amendment was somewhat prolonged,
but the issue was a rather narrow one, and I
think I have given a fair synopsis of the different views
concerning it. The amendment was adopted by a vote
of 88 to 57. The legislature, exercising the power conferred
on it by this section, which was included in the
Constitution of 1894, passed statutes in relation to voting
machines in 1895, 1896, 1897, and 1898, and in 1899
the whole subject was revised and included in a new
article on voting machines, which was added to the election
law. §

1. Charles Zebina Lincoln, The Constitutional History of New York: From the Beginning of the Colonial (Lawyers Co-operative Pub. Co, 1906)., pp. 10

ELECTION CODE (1896): Myers Automatic Ballot Machine

Myers' Automatic Ballot Machine.
Chap. 764.
AN ACT to enable the towns and cities of this state to use the
Myers automatic ballot machine at all elections therein.
BECAME a law May 11, 1896. with the approval of the Governor. Passed,
three-fifths being present.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate
and Assembly', do enact as follows .*
Section 1. The common council of any city and the town board
of any town within this state may adopt the Myers automatic
ballot machine for use at all elections, and thereupon it shall be
lawful to use such ballot machines for the purpose of voting for
all public officers to be voted for by the voters of such town or
city, or any part thereof, and upon all constitutional amendments
or propositions, or questions which may lawfully be submitted to
such voters, and for registering and counting the ballots at such
elections.
Am'd by chap. 163 of 1896. In effect March 30, 1896. §
2. Definitions.— The following terms as used within this
act shall be construed to mean as follows:
Cabinet.— The Myers automatic ballot machine as a whole.
Voters' compartment.— That part of the ballot machine occupied
by the voter in voting.
Counted* compartment.— The closed portion of the ballot
machine containing the automatic mechanical counters.
Counters.— The registering dials in the counter compartment.
Public counter.— The exposed dial at the front of the ballot
machine which registers the total number of electors voting.
Partition plate-— The metal partition dividing the voter's compartment
from the counter compartment. *
So In the original.
190 ELECTION" CODE.
Push knobs.—The knobs projecting from the partition plate
into the voters' compartment and by which the elector registers
his vote.
Keyboard.—The face of the partition plate within the voters'
compartment j
Ballot frames.—The metallic frames within which the ballots
are secured upon the keyboard.
Ballots.—The tabulated lists of offices and nominees respectively,
therefor, or succinct statements of the constitutional
amendments or other questions or propositions submitted, arranged
vertically in pairs, successively captioned " for" and " against,"
printed on cardboard or heavy paper and of dimensions, colors and
type as herein specified to be placed within the ballot frames,
posted at the polls and given to the inspectors as in this act
prescribed.
Ballot captions.— The headings upon which are printed the
name or other appropriate designation of the party or other
nominees, constitutional amendments, questions or propositions
submitted to be placed in a frame provided therefor, upon the
key-board above each vertical column of nominees, constitutional
amendments, questions or propositions, and to correspond therewith
in material and color.
Diagram poster.—A complete set of ballots and ballot captions
forming a fae-simile of those upon tihe key-board and to be posted
at the polls.
Counter labels.—The cards or labels placed in receptacles upon
the face of the respective counters attached to the back of the
partition plate within the counter compartment, having printed
thereon the name of the nominee, or a statement of the amendment,
question or proposition submitted, successively, following
the words " for " and " against" placed directly opposite the corresponding
name, amendment, question or proposition as it
appears upon the faee of the partition plate, within the voters'
compartment and being of the same material and color as its
said opposite.
Instruction cards.—The directions as to method and manner of
voting and statement of the penal provisions relating to the
election code, and to be posted at the polls.
The word nominee, is to be construed to mean, any persons for
whom an elector may vote at the election.
ELECTION CODE. 191
Town.— The word " town " as herein used shall be construed to
mean such town as shall have adopted the Myers' ballot machine
as prescribed in section one. '
City.—The word "city" as herein used shall be construed in
mean such city as shall have adopted the said ballot machine as
prescribed in section one. §
3. Provisions for equipment of polling places.— The town
board of each town and the common council of each city shall
provide for each election necessary polling places, and shall provide
for each polling place, at each election, the necessary ballot
inachiuer. in complete working order, with ballots, ballot captions
and counter labels in their proper places therein, and with
the dials of the labeled counters set at nine, guard rails, inspectors'
table, and other furniture and equipment of such polling
place necessary for the lawful conduct of the election thereat,
put the inspectors of election in possession thereof and deliver to
them the keys of the ballot machine therein, at least forty minutes
before the opening of the polls for holding an election. The
town board of each town and the common council of each city
shall care for the ballot machine, furniture and equipment of
each polling place when not in use in elections.
Am'd by chap. 163 of 1896. In effect March 30, 1896. §
4. Arrangement of the polling place.—The ballot machines at
each polling place shall be so placed as to be at least three feet
from the wall of the room and at least three feet from the outer
guard-rail. There shall be two guard-rails, called the outer and
inner rails. The outer rail shall be so placed as to bar
access to within three feet or more of the ballot machine, with
openings or gateways therein leading to and from the inspectors'
table, which shall be at least four feet from the ballot machines.
The inner guard-rail shall extend to a point at or near the inspectors'
table from a fixture on the ballot-machine placed between
the entrance and exit doors. Such other guard-rails may be
used as shall seem necessary or convenient. The ballot-machine
and every part of the polling place, except the interior of the
ballot-machine, shall be in plain view of the election officers and
persons just outside the guard-rails. §
5. Providing ballots.—The county clerk of the county shall
provide, at the county's expense, the requisite number of ballots,
ballot captions, counter labels and instruction cards for each polling
place in such town and city for each election to be held thereat, except
town meetings and city and village elections and elections of
school officers not held at the same time as the general election. If
a city or village election or a town meeting for the election of public
192 ELECTION CODE.
officers shall be held upon a different day from a general election,
the clerk of such city, village or town shall provide, at the expense
of such city, village or town, the requisite number of ballots, ballot
captions, counter labels and instruction cards for each polling place.
The ballots, ballot captions, counter labels and instruction cards shall
be printed and in possession of the clerk charged with providing
them and open to the public inspection four days before the election,
except those for a village election or a town meeting held at a different
day from the general election shall be so printed, in possession
and open to public inspection two days before such village election
or town meeting. In any town, village, city or county where the
Myers automatic ballot machine has been or may be adopted for use
at elections, the voting precincts or districts therein may be arranged
by the officers charged by law with such duty, so as to contain not
more than six hundred voters each.
Am'd by chap. 73 of 1895. Took effect March 5, 1895. §
6. Description of ballot captions, ballots, counter labels, and
instruction cards.— Ballot captions shall be of cardboard or
heavy paper, four inches long by three and three-fourths inches
wide and shall have printed thereon, in plain clear type as large
as the space will reasonably permit, the party or other appropriate
designation of the nominees, amendments, questions or other
propositions submitted. Ballots stall be of as many kinds as
there are political parties or titles represented by certificates of
nominations duly filed, or constitutional amendments, questions
or other propositions submitted, and shall l,e cf cardboard or
heavy paper, three and five-eighths inches wide, spaced by cross
lines one and eleven-sixteenths inches apart, between centers of
lines, except the upper one should be thus spaced, four inches from
the top and upon the ballot shall be printed in plain, clear type,
not smaller than pica, the name of the office and under it the
name of the candidate or nominee therefor in plain, clear type,
known as great primer ionic, as large as the width of the ballot
will permit, or a plain, concise statement of the amendment,
question or proposition submitted under successive captions "
for" and " against," with or without an index hand pointing (
when placed in the ballot-frame) to the piish knob used when
voting by that ballot. Counter labels shall be of cardboard, or
heavy paper, three-eighths of an inch wide by three
inches long, upon which shall be printed the name or other suitable
designation of the nominee, amendment, question or other
proposition submitted. Should any party fail to make a, nomination
for an office, the ballot in that party's column upon the key-board
ELECTION CODE. 193
on the horizontal line devoted to that office, shall be left blank
and its push-knob to the right and opposite thereto shall be capped
po as to ba inoperative. Should two or more parties nominate the
same person for the same office, his name shall be printed upon
the ballot of the party which shall first nominate him., provided
such nominee within two days after his second nomination, may
by a written instrument acknowledged as deeds are required to
be acknowledged for record, and filed with the county clerk of
the county, designate which one of such political parties in whose
tolnmn he desires his name to appear, and the county clerk shall
prepare his ballot for that party, and the ballots of the other
party or parties which shall have nominated hun, shall be left
blank for that office, and the corresponding push-knob or push-
knobs to the right of and opposite thereto shall be capped so
as to be inoperative. If two or more officers are to be elected to
the same office for different terms, the term for which each is
nominated shall be designated on the ballot. If, in any congressional
district, one congressman is to be elected for a full term and
another to fill a vacancy, the ballot containing the name of each
nominee shall designate the congress for which he is nominated.
The ballot captions, ballots and counter labels of the several
political parties or other nominating bodies, and the ballots for
and against constitutional amendments or other propositions or
questions, shall be distinguished from each other by distinctive
colors; and, so far as is possible, the colors to be used to distinguish
the candidates of the different political parties or other
nominating bodies shall be those prescribed by the present usage
of those towns in which such ballot machines have heretofore
been used. The instruction cards shall state the prescribed
colors of the party ballots and other ballots, and ballot
captions, and give a summary of the laws punishing violations
of the election law, with such other information as shall seem
pertinent and advisable. §
7. Number of ballet captions, ballots, counter labels, and
instruction cards.—Four ballots of each kind shall be provided for
each polling-place. Four instruction cards printed in English
and four printed in such other language or languages as shall be
prescribed by the board of supervisors of the county, shall be provided
for each polling place. They shall be printed in clear type
so as to be easily read. Four complete sets of ballot captions
and two complete sets of counter labels shall also be provided
for each polling place. §
8. Correction of mistakes.—Upon affidavit presented by any
voter that an error or an omission has occurred in the printing of
the ballots, ballot captions or counter labels, the supreme court
or a justice thereof, may make an order requiring the county
clerk or other officer or board charged with the duty in respect to
which such error or omission occurred, to correct such error or
show cause why it should not be corrected. The county clerk or
other officer or board shall, on their own motion, correct any palpable
error in the ballots, ballot captions, counter labels or instruction
cards which can be corrected without interfering with their
timely distribution. §
9. Distribution of ballots.—The county clerk charged with the
duty of providing ballots, ballot captions, counter labels', aJid
instruction cards, shall on Saturday before the election in which
they are to be used, deliver to the clerk of each town and to the
city clerk of each city in the county, the ballots, ballot captions,
counter labels, and instruction cards required for each polling
place in such town or city. They shall be so delivered in two
equal and similar sealed packages for each election district, each
marked upon the outside thereof with the designation of the
election district for which it is intended. Eeceipts, specifying
the number and kind of packages, shall be given by each town
and city clerk, and filed with the county clerk, who shall keep a
record thereof, specifying the time and manner of the delivery.
Each town and city clerk receiving such packages shall cause one
of them to be delivered unopened and with its seals unbroken, to
the inipectors of the election district marked thereon, at least
thirty minutes before the opening of the polls, and shall take a
receipt from such inspectors, specifying and describing the package,
which receipt shall be filed in the office of such clerk; from
the contents of the other package he shall, not later than the
day preceding the election, place, or cause to be placed, in the
proper receptacles in each ballot-machine the "ballot captions, ballots
and counter labels in the order as officially published, and
shall post instruction cards and diagram posters within the
polling-room, accessible to voters, and set all labeled counters at
ninety-nine hundred and ninety-nine. City and town clerks,
charged with the duty of providing ballots, ballot captions, counter ELECTION CODE. 195
labels and instruction cards shall, in like manner, distribute them
and take receipts therefor within their respective cities and
towns. Such receipts shall be filed in the respective offices of
the city and town clerks. §
10. Lost ballots.—If the ballots, ballot captions, counter
labels or instruction cards shall not be furnished to the town or
city clerk as required herein, or if after being furnished and
delivered they, or any of them, shall be lost, destroyed or stolen,
the clerk of such town or city shall cause other ballots, as nearly
in the form as those lost, destroyed or stolen, ap possible, captions,
counter labels or instruction cards to 'be prepared, and deliver
them to the inspectors of election in their several election districts,
and the substituted ballots, ballot captions, counter labels
or instruction cards shall be used at the election in the same manner,
as near as may be, as those lost, destroyed or stolen. The
inspectors may correct palpable errors therein and shall, in their
statement of the election, specify such corrections as made by
them. §
11. Preparation for voting.— The inspectors of election and
the poll clerks shall meet at their respective polling places in
each election district forty minutes before the time designated
for the opening of the polls therein. The inspectors shall choose
one of their number chairman, if not already so chosen and
present. They shall there have the ballots, ballot captions,
counter labels and instruction cards, and shall break the package
thereof, make and post conspicuously, and so as to be accessible,
one or more diagram posters, two or more instruction
cards, and, if they shall be printed in different languages, at
least two in each such language, at said polling-place. The
diagram posters and instruction cards so posted shall not be
taken down, torn, defaced or mutilated at such elections. The
chairman shall retain one complete set of ballots, ballot captions
and counter labels for use within the ballot machines, if needed.
The inspectors shall then enter the voters' compartment of the
ballot machine through the entrance door, and, if not already
done, the chairman shall, in the presence of the inspectors, adjust
and secure within the frames upon the key-board the ballot captions
and ballots in the vertical numbered columns and to the
left side of the push-knobs of the same color as the ballots, and
arranged in the same order as on the diagram posters. The chairman shall then, in an audible voice, read from the said
columns consecutively, beginning with the column number one,
the caption and the ballots thereunder, in the order that they
ippear on the key-board. The inspectors shall see that all the
names of the nominees for the same office appear and remain
on the same horizontal lines, and that the ballots upon constitutional
amendments, or other questions or propositions submitted,
are arranged in pairs, successively captioned " for" and "
against." The chairman shall then lock the bolt-rod behind
the lock-button at the left side of the key-board. The inspectors
shall then leave the voters' compartment through the entrance
door, and the authorized watchers may then inspect the interior
of the voters' compartment, likewise entering and departing
through the entrance door, which shall thereupon be closed and
locked by the chairman. The chairman shall then fully open
the sliding doors of the counter compartment, in the presence
of the inspectors and watchers, and, if not already so done, set
each dial in every labeled counter at nine, and announce that
every counter is so set. The chairman shall then direct the
other inspectors to enter the voters' compartment, push iu the
push-knob of the uppermost ballot in column number one, and
read aloud said ballot, whereupon the chairman shall insert in
the receptacle of the counter thus indicated its counter label,
if not already inserted, and shall audibly repeat the name, and',
in substance, say his counter is labeled and that all its dials,
are set at zero. They shall thus continue until all the pushi-
knobs in column number one have been pushed in. One of the;
inspectors shall then go out through the exit door, thus releasing
the push-knobs. The inspectors shall then re-enter the ballot
machine, and they shall proceed with the remaining columns
in all respects as with column number one. The inspectors
shall then leave the voters' compartment, one going out through
the exit door, the others through the entrance door. They shall
all then see that the counter labels are in the same relative position
opposite their respective ballots, and that all dials stand at
zero, and each of them shall announce that all dials stand at
zero. The chairman shall then adjust the public counter at zero.
The counter compartment shall then be locked.
Am'd by chao. 163 of 1896. In effect March 30, 1896. §
12. Duties of inspectors.— During the time that the polls
are open the chairman, or one of the inspectors, shall be stationed
at the entrance door of the ballot-machine to act as doorkeeper. §
13. Voting. — The polls being open, the voters shall pass
through the opening in the outer guard-rail singly or in single
file, and keeping in file, proceed to the inspectors' table. If the yoter shall be found to be entitled to vote, the doorkeeper shall
admit him to the ballot-machine through the entrance door, which
Bhall be immediately closed and kept closed until said voter shall
have come out through the exit door, and said exit door is entirely
closed. The voter may be challenged at any time before he
enters the ballot-machine. §
14. Disabled voters—Any voter who shall be totally blind,
without the use of either hand sufficient to push the knobs, or
physically unable to enter or leave the ballot-machine without
assistance, may choose from the inspectors or poll clerks, an
assistant, who shall be admitted to the ballofrmachine with him.
The person so selected shall not, in any manner, request or seek
to persuade or induce such voter to vote any particular ballot or
for any particular nominee, amendment, question or proposition,
and shall not reveal how such disabled voter voted, or what
occurred within the ballot machine. After voting, one shall come
from the ballot-machine through the entrance door first, the other
through the exit door last The name of the assistant shall be
noted on the registers and poll-lists, opposite the name of the
disabled voter and also the character of the disability. Intoxication,
inability to read and write, and mental disability shall
not be regarded as physical disability. Such physically disabled
voter may be examined under, oath administered by any inspector
as to his disability, and if he knowingly testify falsely, he shall
be guilty of perjury and punishable therefor. §
15. Time of voting.—No voter shall remain within the ballot-
machine longer than one minute. If he do so, he shall &e
requested to leave the ballot-machine, and if he refuse, he shall
be removed, and the inspectors may call for such aid as shall be
needed so to do. §
1. Instructing voter within the ballot-machine—In case
any voter within the ballot-machine shall ask the doorkeeper any
question concerning the manner of voting, the doorkeeper shall
summon another inspector of a party other than his own, and
the question shall then be answered in the presence of both such
inspectors; but under no circumstances shall advice be given ;IH
to how or for whom the voter shall vote. §
17. Canvassing the vote.—As soon as the polls are closed, the
entrance door of the ballot machine shall be locked. The inspectors
shall then, in the presence of the watchers, unlock and open the sliding doors of the counter cbmpartment, only so far as to
fully expose the full width of the wire-meshed guard door. The
chairman shall read or announce, reading from left to right, the
result in an audible voice to the others, ap shown by the dials and
they shall each and all observe and record the total number of
votes registered for each respective candidate and upon each constitutional
amendment, question, or other proposition as registered
and declared by such ballot machine register, and such ascertainment
of the results shall be deemed to be the canvassing of the
votes cast at such election. The wire-meshed guard door shall
not be unlocked or opened at any time during the canvass.
They shall then close and lock the counter compartment doors and
shall observe and record the total number of voters who have voted
in the ballot machine by transcribing the number shown by the
dials of the public counter. §
IS.Certified statement.—Upon the completion of the canvass,
the inspectors shall make and sign a written statement thereof,
showing the date of the election, number of the district, the town
or ward and the county in which it was held, the whole number of
votes cast for each office, the whole number cast for each nominee
for such office and the whole number cast, respectively, for and
against each constitutional amendment, question, or other proposition
submitted. Copies shall be 'made and filed and proclamar
tion of the result of the election made as now required by the election
law. §
19. Ballot clerk.—No ballot clerks shall be elected or appointed
in any town or city that shall have adopted the use of the ballot
machine. §
20. Election law.—The provisions of the election law not inconsistent
with this chapter shall apply with full force to all towns and
cities adopting the use of the ballot machine. § *
1. Additional ballot machines.—Nothing herein contained
shall prevent the use of more than one ballot machine in any
polling place during an election. §
22. Mistakes and omissions.—A departure in matters of former
method from those prescribed herein not tending to prejudice the
substantial rights of the voter, shall be disregarded, and the provisions
of this chapter shall be liberally construed to effect the
objects of the law. §
23. The counties of New York and Kings are excepted from
the provisions of this act. §
24. This act shall take effect immediately.

SOURCE:

1. New York (State). Laws, Statutes, and etc, Code of Election Laws of the State of New York, 1897.

1. New York (State). Laws, Statutes, and etc, Code of Election Laws of the State of New York, 1897.

ELECTION CODE (1896): Davis Automatic Ballot Machine

Chap. 339.
AN ACT to enable the towns and cities of this state to use- the
Davis automatic ballot machines at all elections therein.
BECAME a law April 21, 1896, with the approval of the Governor. Passed,
a majority being present.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate
and Assembly, do enact as follows :
Section 1. The common council of any city, and the town board
of any town within tins state may adopt the Davis automatic ballot
machine for use at all elections, and thereupon it shall be lawful
to use such ballot machines for the purpose of voting for all
public officers to be elected by the voters of such town or city,
or any part thereof, and upon all constitutional amendments or
propositions, or questions which may lawfully be submitted to
such voters, and for registering and counting the ballots cast at
such election. §
2. The common council of each city, and the town board of
each town adopting said machine, shall provide for each polling
place, at each election therein, the necessary ballot machines, in
complete working order, with the dials of the counters set at 0,
and shall care for the said ballot machines, as well as the furniture
and equipment of the polling places when not in use at
elections. §
3. The ballot machine and every part of the polling place shall
be in plain view of the election officers, including the watchers.
The ballot machines shall be placed at least three feet from the
wall of the room and at least three feet from the outer guard-raih
The inspectors' table shall be at least four feet from the ballot
machine. An inner guard-rail shall extend from the ballot
machine and between the entrance and exit doors thereof to a
point at or near the inspectors' table. The outer guard-rail shall
be so placed as to bar access to within three feet at least of the
ballot machine, but with openings or gateways leading to and
from the inspectors' table. Party nominations shall be arranged1
in columns, or else in horizontal rows, upon the said machines,
and at the head of each of said columns, or else at the end of each
of said rows, as the case may be, ballot captions shall be placed
of cardboard, or heavy paper, not less than four inches long nor
less than three inches wide, which shall have printed thereon, in
plain, clear type, as large as the space will reasonably permit, the [203]
party or other lawful designation of the nominee, amendments, or
other questions or propositions submitted to vote. For each candidate
lawfully nominated, and for each constitutional amendment
or other proposition lawfully submitted to vote, a push key
or lever shall be set as provided in section two of this act, and
adjacent thereto shall be attached a printed ballot of cardboard,
or heavy paper, not less than three inches long and not less than
two inches wide, upon which shall be printed in plain, clear type,
as large as the space will reasonably permit, the name of the office
and the name of the candidate or nominee therefor; or a concise
statement of the amendment, question or proposition submitted,
under successive headings for and against. Should any party
fail to make a nomination for any office, the ballot in that party's
column or horizontal line upon the keyboard devoted to that office
shall be left blank, and the push-knob or lever thereof shall be,
capped or otherwise arranged so as to be inoperative. Should
two or more parties nominate the same person for the same office,
or should the same person be nominated for the same office by any
party and also by independent nomination, his name shall be
printed upon the ballot of the party, or in the list of independent
nominations, the certificate of which shall first be filed as required
by law; {provided, however, that such nominee may, within two
days after his second nomination, by a written instrument, acknowledged
as deeds are required to be acknowledged for record,
and filed with the county clerk of the county, require his name to
appear in the column or horizontal line of some other party so>
nominating him, and the county clerk shall prepare his»ballot accordingly,
and the ballots of the other party or parlies which shall
have nominated him shall be left blank for that office, and fhe corresponding
push-knob or push-knobs or levers shall be capped or
otherwise arranged so as to be inoperative. If two or more officers
are to be elected to the same office for different terms, the term
for which each is nominated shall be designated on the ballot.
The ballot captions and ballots of the several political parties or
other nominating bodies, and those for and against constitutional
amendments or other propositions or questions, shall be distinguished
from each other by distinctive colors, and the ballot captions
shall contain thereon the party emblems as provided by
section fifty-six of chapter eight hundred and ten of the laws of
eighteen hundred and ninety-five. In addition to the push-knob
or lever and the ballot for each candidate, such bailot machines
may also provide in each column or horizontal line of the party
nominations a. separate push-knob or lever to vote a ballot printed
in plain, large type " straight ticket." In presidential elections
such ballot machines may provide in each column or horizontal [204]ine of party nominations a separate push-knob or lever to vote a
ballot for all the presidential electors nominated by such party. §
4. The county clerk of the county shall provide at the expense
of the county, the requisite number of ballots, ballot captions,
counter labels and instruction cards for each polling place
in such town and city for each election to be held thereat, except
for town meetings, village elections, and the elections of school
officers not held at the same time as the general election, in which
latter case the clerk of such village, town or school district shall
provide at the expense of said village, town or school district the
requisite number of ballots, ballot captions, counter labels and
instruction cards for each polling place. The ballots, ballot
captions, counter labels and instruction cards shall be printed
and in possession of the clerk charged with the duty of providing
them and open to the public inspection four days before every
election, except in case of a town meeting, village election, OP
election of school officers not held at the same* time as the general
election, in which case they shall be so printed and open to public
inspection two days before such election. §
5. Four sample ballots of each kind shall be provided for each
polling place, and four instruction cards printed in such other
language or languages as the common council or the town board
may prescribe, shall be provided for each polling place, together^
with four complete sets of ballot captions. The ballot captions
and ballots shall be duplicates of those used upon the machine,
and the instruction cards shall be printed in clear type so as to
be easily read. The instruction cards shall state the prescribed
colors and emblems of the party ballots, and of the ballots of
independent nominees, and shall give a summary of the laws
punishing violations of the election law and full instructions for
the use of said ballot machines. §
6. The county clerk or other officer having charge of the
printing of the ballots, ballot captions and instruction cards,
shall on his own motion, correct any error therein upon discovery
thereof, which can be corrected without interfering with their
distribution and use at the election. §
7. Counter labels shall be of cardboard or heavy paper of the
same length, width and color as the ballots, and shall be so placed
on the machine as that the registering coiinter for each push-
knob or lever shall show, adjacent to the label or ballot, the number
of ballots cast for the candidate whose name is printed upon
said counter label. §
8. The clerk charged with the duty of providing ballots, ballot
captions, counter labels and instruction cards shall, on Saturday
before the election at which they are to be used, deliver to [205] the clerk of each town and city in the county, the ballots, ballot
captions, counter labels and instruction cards required for each
polling place in such town or city. §
9. The inspectors of election and poll clerks shall meet at
their respective polling places in each election district, thirty
minutes before the time of opening of the polls therein. After the
election of one of their number as chairman, they shall post the
instruction cards and sample ballot captions, and shall, if the
same has not already been done, adjust and secure within the
frames upon the keyboard, the ballot captions and ballots in the
presence of the official watchers. The inspectors shall then fully,
open the doors of the counter compartment in the presence of the
inspectors and watchers, and shall thereupon push the push-
knobs or levers on the balloting side of the machine until all the
counter dials register at zero. The counting apparatus shall then
be locked. §
10. After the polls shall have been duly opened, the voters
shall pass through the opening in the outer guard-rail singly
or in single file to the inspectors' table. If the voter shall be
found entitled to vote, one of the inspectors shall admit him; to
the ballot machine through the entrance. §
11. Any voter who shall be totally blind or without the use of
either hand sufficient to push the knobs or levers, or who shall be
physically unable to enter or leave the ballot machine without assistance,
may choose from the inspectors or poll clerks an assistant
who shall be admitted to the ballot machine with him, pn>
vided he shall have been duly registered as a disabled voter pursuant
to section one hundred and five of chapter eight hundred
and ten of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-five; but intoxication
or illiteracy shall not be regarded as a physical disability.*
The inspector or poll clerk selected by the voter shall not
in any manner request nor seek to persuade or induce such voter
to vote any particular ballot, or for any particular nominee,
amendment, question or proposition, and shall not reveal for
whom such disabled voter voted. §
12. In case any voter after entering the ballot machine shall
ask for further instructions concerning the manner of voting, twoj
inspectors of opposite political parties shall stand outside the
machine and give such directions to the voter as they two may
agree upon, except that under no circumstances shall either of
them give advice as to voting for any particular nominee, amendment,
question or proposition. §
13. No voter shall remain within the ballot machine longer?
than one minute, and if he shall refuse to leave the said machine!
after the lapse of one minute, he shall be removed by_the inspectors. *
The chapter referred to was repealed by chap. 909, Laws of 1893. [206]
206 ELECTION CODE.
§
14. As soon as the polls are closed the ballot machine shall
be locked against voting, and the counting compartment opened
in the presence of the watchers and all other persons who may be
lawfully within the room, or voting place, giving full view to the
dial numbers announcing the votes cast for each candidate, and
for or against the various constitutional amendments, questions
or other propositions. §
15. The inspectors shall then add together the votes cast for
each candidate upon the straight tickets, if any, and the votes
cast for such candidates by reason of the push-knob or lever
bearing the name of that candidate, and officially and publicly
announce the total vote for each candidate thus ascertained.
Before leaving the room or voting place, and before closing and
locking the counting compartment, the inspectors shall make and
sign written statements of election required by section one hundred
and fifteen of chapter eight hundred and ten of the laws of
eighteen hundred and ninety-five, except that such statements of
the canvass need not contain any ballots, official or defective.*
The written statements so made, after having been signed by the
inspectors, shall be read in the hearing of all persons present and
ample opportunity given to compare the results so certified, with
the counter dials so exposed to public view. After such comparison
and correction, if any, are made, the inspector shall
then close the counting compartment. §
16. No ballot clerks shall be elected or appointed in any town
or city that shall have adopted the use of the ballot machine. §
17. All provisions of the election law, not inconsistent with
this chapter, shall apply with full force to all towns and cities
adopting the use of ballot machines. §
18. This act shall take effect immediately. *
The chapter referred to was repealed by chap. C09, Laws of 18»8.

SOURCE: New York (State), Code of Election Laws of the State of New York, Embracing the General (Banks & Brothers, 1897). pp. 202-206.




Chop. 34O.
AN ACT to amend chapter seven hundred and sixty-four, of the
laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-four, entitled " An act to
enable the towns and cities of this state to use the Myers automatic
ballot machine at all elections therein," as amended by
chapter seventy-three of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-
five; and to amend chapter 'seven hundred and sixty-five, of
the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-four, entitled " An
act to secure independence of voters at town meetings, secrecy of
the ballot, and providing for the use of automatic ballot cabinets,"
as amended by chapter one hundred and fifty-eight of the laws
of eighteen hundred and ninety-five; and to repeal section four
of chapter four hundred and fifty of the laws of eighteen hundred
and ninety-seven, entitled "An act relating to the use of
voting machines."
Became a law April 20, 1898, with the approval of the Governor.
Passed, three-fifths being present.
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and
Assembly, do enact as follows:
Section 1. Section five of chapter seven hundred and sixty-four
of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-four, entitled "An
act to enable the towns and cities of this state to use the Myers
automatic ballot machine at all elections therein," as amended
by chapter seventy-three of the. laws of eighteen hundred and
ninety-five, is hereby amended to read as follows: §
5. Providing ballots. The county clerk of the county shall
provide, at the county's expense, the requisite number of ballots,
ballot captions, counter labels and instruction cards for each
polling place in such town and city for each election to be held
thereat, except town meetings and city and village elections and
elections of school officers not held at the same time as the general
election. If a city or village election or a town meeting for
the election of public officers shall be held upon a different day
from a general election, the clerk of such city, village or town
shall provide, at the expense of such city, village or town, the
requisite number of ballots, ballot captions, counter labels and
instruction cards for each polling place. The ballots, ballot captions,
counter labels and instruction cards shall be printed and
in possession of the clerk charged with providing them and open [989] to the public inspection four days before the election, except
those for a village election or a town meeting held at a different
day from the general election shaJl be so printed, in possession
and open to public inspection two days before such village election
or town meeting. §
2. Section two of chapter seven hundred and sixty-five of the
laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-four, entitled "An act to
secure independence of voters at town meetings, secrecy of the
ballot and providing for the use of automatic ballot cabinets,"
as amended by chapter one hundred and fifty-eight of the la r/s of
eighteen hundred and ninety-five, is hereby amended to read aa
follows: §
2. Form of ballots and canvass of votes. The ballot by which
the elector chooses or votes in said automatic ballot cabinets shall
be in secret, and shall be a cardboard or paper ticket, or emblem,
which shall contain written or printed, or partly written or partly
printed, the names of the persons for whom the elector intends'
to vote, and shall designate the office to which each person so
named is intended by him to .be chosen, and shall not contain any
other printed or written device or distinguishing mark, excepting
a heading or caption of its political or party designation, of not
exceeding five words, and may be of different colors, and if there
shall be found in the ballot-boxes more ballots of the respective
political parties than were indicated by the automatic registers,
such excess of ballots of the respective parties shall be rejected;
and the canvassers shall also make a true canvass of all sp1it
tickets, and make an accurate return of the votes cast for the
respective candidates. The town board or board of trustees of
such village may make regulations for the use of such bal'ot
cabinets, but such regulations shall require all actions and proceedings
of the election officers to be in public in the presence of
watchers who may be appointed by the different political parties
or candidates thereof, and shall not be inconsistent with law further
than n.ay be necessary by reason of the use of such ballot
cabinets for the purpose of holding elections, counting and canvassing
the ballots thereof. §
3. Section four of chapter four hundred and fifty of the law*
of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled "An act relating
to the use of voting machines," is hereby repealed. §
4. This act shall take effect immediately.

SOURCE: 1. New York (State), Laws of the State of New York (s.n, 1898).pp. 988-989.

Columbia Voting Machine Co.

Incorporated in Penn., March, 1901.

Dean Voting Machine

J.H. Dean of St. Paul granted patent for voting machine: was "granted 356 claims on his machine, which is said to be the largest number of claims ever granted in a single patent." (Minneapolis Journal 11-11-1899, p. 4. )

Turner voting machine

Would not require a constitutional amendment because it "registers a ballot for each voter" "Another Voting Machine," Indiana State Journal (12-09-1896), p. 8.

Myers and his "open letter"

"J.H. Myers, the inventor of the ballot machine, has written an open letter, complaining that he is having the usual hard luck of inventors. The company which manufactured the machine has recently sold out to a new concern. Mr. Myers is no longer president, and his name has been dropped from the company, which is now known as the American Ballot Machine Company." "About People and Things," Indiana State Journal (1-06-1897), p. 4.

"The Myers ballot machine factory of Rochester has shut down. It is reported that J.H. Myers, the inventor of the machine, has been deposed as manager. If Rochester takes the machines it has ordered the factor will open up again. " Hornersville Weekly Tribune 11-13-1896.

Abbot voting machine

Used in Hudson, MI in 1896 presidential election (Idaho Daily Statesman 11-04-1896, p. 1).

Rejection of Rhines Machine in North Dakota

In the debate over an election bill in the North Dakota state legislature, Mr. Lilly moved that the voting machine section be removed. Lilly argued for a uniform system throughout the state; the law provided that counties could elect to use voting machines if they wishes. Furthermore, Lilly argued that "he believed the Rhines voting machine would not answer the requirements of the constitution -- a secret ballot." Bismarck Tribune (March 11, 1890), p. 1.

Rhines had a tough time getting legislatures to approve his machine:

Michigan - bill defeated 47-23 (Daily Inter Ocean [Chicago], July 3, 1891, 20:3, p. 3

Sartre on the Voting Machine

"Sartre posits a fundamental distinction between two kinds of human social structures, the series and the group (or fused group). Most common of these types is the series, which is, roughly speaking, passive and dependent upon an outside force for the determination of its internal structure; relevant examples of series would be the sets of people lined up in a grocery store check-out line or at a polling booth, their seriality (in these cases their identities as consumers or citizens) "produced in advance as the structure of some unknown group" (Sartre 265) by the cash register or the voting machine. This means that an individual person forms part of a series when s/he participates in "a reality shared by several people . . . which already exists, and awaits him, by means of an inert practice, denoted by instrumentality, whose meaning is that it integrates him into an ordered multiplicity by assigning him a place in a prefabricated seriality" (Sartre 265). In other words, he or she belatedly joins an already existing social complex embodied in mechanical sorting, counting, and management devices (aspects of what Marx called "dead labor" and Sartre calls " inert practice " or '' instrumentality"). These machines give him or her "a place in a prefabricated seriality" by reducing the subject's choices to the array of preestablished alternatives they offer. The place of such a complex in the overall social organization, or "socius," is stable and wholly determined by the constraints of that organization's formal structure and requirements. This passive and preordained seriality is obviously "the basic type of sociality" (Sartre 348) under capitalism and state socialism...."

SOURCE: Timothy S. Murphy, Wising Up the Marks: The Amodern William Burroughs. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press (1997), p.

Proceedings of the National Conference for Good City Government, 1910

ANSLEY WILCOX, of Buffalo: One special matter was mentioned by Mr Osborn which I think it is worth while to present more fully because w here in Buffalo have had a chance to try it out in our experience, an we can show you something before you go away which some of yo have never seen before,—that is the voting machine Buffalo, I think, is the largest community which has adopted and fo many years has used the voting machine. Up to this year it has bee correct to say that our voting machines have playe The Voting us absolutely true, and we have had no reason to b Machine dissatisfied with them. We have had our electio returns, after the close of the polls, more quickly tha any other large community, and there has been less trouble in the wa of questions about the accuracy of the results than one would believ possible. Certainly, as compared with the condition of things whic existed before, when we voted on paper ballots, either in the early stag when parties and individuals got up their own ballots, or in the late stage when the state furnished official ballots, our voting machines hav been an enormous improvement in celerity, in certainty of work and i the removal of a large class of questions which are involved in th general subject of corrupt practices at elections. Tampering with board of elections, holding back of returns, falsifying returns to meet the necessities or supposed necessities, of candidates for majorities larger o smaller as the case may be, all those things have been entirely don away with by the use of these ballot machines It is important to speak of this at this time because any failure of voting machine attains great publicity, and it has already been publishe broadcast through the country that in the recent election last week two o our machines obviously did fail. That subject is being investigated t day before the board of canvassers, the board of supervisors of th county of Erie. The two machines are over at the City Hall and th fault is going to be found out, whatever it is. One or two candidate received several hundred votes less than they were entitled to, while th rest got the proper number,—there was some fault in the mechanism Up to this moment the party whose candidates were injured by that fals result does not suspect any intentional wrong-doing. It simply seem to be a breakdown of those two machines. Very peculiarly two machine performed the same tricks, and against the same candidates, bu it does not seem to be possible that they could have been intentionall fixed in such a way as to do that thing. Notwithstanding that, up to th present time, I want to say on behalf of the people of Buffalo that w believe in the voting machine, and we know that the voting machine ha taken the place of human agencies for recording and counting votes, i a way that has done a great deal for purity in our elections for man years But I want to go further, and point out one or two other things the may accomplish. It has always been remarkable to us in Buffalo that ou friends in New York City have never adopted voting machines as means of curing some of the evils they complain of; and the objection always made to them have been these : first, the heav Objections to expense involved, owing to the fact that they ar their Use complicated and patented machines. The original cost I believe, was some five or six hundred dollars each That may possibly be reduced now, but being a patented machine, probabl not very much reduced. Buffalo uses 115, and has to have more i store. New York City would use twelve or fifteen hundred, or eve more. The initial cost is great, but after that they reduce the annua expense of the elections very largely The second objection is to the absence of secrecy, because with th machine the voting is done by pulling a lever, and that does make a perceptibl noise. The person who goes in and votes a straight party ticket makes one click only. Of course, if there are constitutional amendment they make one or two or three more sounds, if he votes for them. Bu usually a paid voter would be persuaded not to vote for these, but t vote one click, thereby recording a straight party vote for the candidate and no more. If another lever is moved it can be heard. That does, t a slight degree, remove the secrecy of voting, although it is all don behind curtains where it cannot be seen. As to the expense, the great cost of this machine comes from its patentabl quality. It is due to the complication of the mechanism, whic records the votes of a great many candidates by pulling one genera lever, and also individual votes by pulling individual levers. You ca pull a party column lever and vote for them all. You can move back, i you are voting the Republican ticket, the pointer of a Republican candidate and vote for a Democratic candidate in a different column on th same line, and also sometimes on a different line. Those are the complication which are covered by patents, and which make the machin expensive, and also make it dangerous, liable to break down because o its complexity. Now, with a simple machine, with the names of the can-didates arranged alphabetically, or at least not in party columns, and lever opposite each one, by pulling that lever it records on a single dial and there is no other means of moving that dial. I am prepared to sa that such a machine would not be patentable, because this mechanism ha long been used all over the world. With the elimination of patents wil disappear the great expense of the machine, and the chances of breakdow will disappear because of the simplicity of the mechanism As to the question of secrecy, such a machine will click for every ma you vote for, and nobody is going to stop to count whether it click five or seven or nine or eleven times, when so man Secrecy men are on the ticket. You may vote for one man and move the pointer back and vote for another, fo these machines do not record until you come out. You can change a much as you like while you are in the voting space. The recording i done when you throw back the curtain. The entire objection on th ground of secrecy would be removed if we had this form of ballot Those are considerations which make me think that the urging of th ballot machines will be an auxiliary to help in the general movement fo ballot reform, because it is so obvious that a machine constructed on thos simple lines will be safe, economical, entirely secret and as expeditiou as lightning in recording the vote. The vote is recorded the instant th voting is concluded MR. PLEYDELL: I want to say a few words on the other side of thi question. I live and vote in the State of New Jersey where we have bee afflicted with this machine. They cost the state over a million dollars They were not put in all of the districts. Whereve TJew Jersey's they were put in a district there was such complain Experience that the commissioner who had charge of them woul shift them off on another district until nobody woul take them. I was in one of those districts that got a machine on th last shuffle and had to keep it. The protest was so strong that the legislatur passed a referendum law by which the people of a voting distric could have a special election as to getting rid of the machine. My tow held a special election quickly. It was so nearly unanimous that ver few people bothered to vote. It is a small district with about a thousan voters, and some 260 of us went around to vote the machine out. Abou five or six people voted to keep them. Every municipality in which vote was taken voted them out. The machines are cumbersome, they ar complex, they are a help to the party machine. The voting machine use is so complex that a leading professor of engineering at Princeton confesse after he came out that he did not know how he had voted, and have been informed that the governor of the state who signed the bil to put the machines in has stated that he didn't know how he voted and I know that several judges of our courts stated that after they had [507] come out of the booth that they didn't know for whom they had voted While it is true that some of these difficulties can be overcome if yo do not have the party column, and would be lessened somewhat if yo had a short ballot, nevertheless there are other difficulties that woul arise. You can vote a party ticket very quickly with the machine, bu when you have only one machine in a voting district and a lot of peopl to vote there is an unconscious pressure on every man to vote quickly If he doesn't, he gets yelled at, and if he stays too long they go in an yank him out, and you have not the opportunities you have with the presen voting booths. These are important things. If we want the peopl to discriminate when they vote, we have got to give them every facilit to discriminate, instead of making it hard for them. It is bad enoug to have a blanket ballot, but at least a man, if he spoils one, can com out and get another, and after he has marked it he has some idea fo whom he is voting PRESIDENT FOULKE: Dr. Samuel Johnson once said he could make dictionary but he could not convey the capacity to comprehend it. suppose that the advocates of this machine will say that the company ca make a machine which will adequately record the vote but it could no give to New Jersey governors and justices and professors the capacit to comprehend the machine. [Laughter.] That would probably be th natural conclusion I will say in Indiana the same thing is now being considered. Two o the machines have failed to register correctly at Indianapolis and gentleman of my own city told me he had employed some detectives t work upon the question of whether the machine had been or could b manipulated by either of the two political parties or managers in suc way as to make the result fraudulent. Upon the investigation of tha matter, and this question here, would depend very largely it seems to m the question as to whether those machines are entitled to the confidenc of the community HORACE E. DEM ING, of New York City: While we are discussing th question of voting machines there is one aspect of it that I think w ought to bear in mind. What a voting machine does now. and doe meritoriously when it works, is like a cash register, it facilitates th recording of the vote, and when the poles close, within a few moment you know how many votes each person has received. In that respect like an adding machine, or a cash register, it is of some value i facilitating the quickness of the returns. But it does another thing. voting machine, in order to be adequate in Ne An Investment in York State must be constructed so as to work ou Vicious Voting monstrous ballot, a most vicious form of voting. I help to preserve and make perpetual that vicious for of voting. Every hundred thousand dollars that a city puts into

[508]

series of voting machines is a permanent investment in a vicious metho of voting. You get the strongest element of greed and selfishness o the side of preserving what is a blot on our civilization. If you had simple ballot, if you had an honest ballot, if you had a readily understandabl ballot, if you had a ballot that held out equal justice to eac candidate, or each office, which was fair to each voter who wished t discriminate among those candidates, if you had that ballot and yo wanted to count it a little more rapidly, why, have a cash register The only reason we have any need for a cash register is because w have a vicious form of ballot, and to perpetuate that vicious form o ballot by saying, " Here's a contrivance that will count it more easily, I account, very little short of a political crime. In Massachusetts, wher they have a long ballot, but a simple one to understand, in one pollin booth, in less hours than we occupy, they count without a single erro sixteen hundred or seventeen hundred of those ballots. We have ballot so enormously bad that we have to find a whole lot of ignoran people, half educated, to man the polls to see to the counting. Then w say, here is a machine that will rid us of some of these errors. The rea thing that we ought to call for is a decent ballot, and until we get tha decent ballot let none of us advocate the putting of any public mone in any machine, however ingenious, that helps to perpetuate it. [Applause. MR. HOSIER: We have had voting machines in Rochester. think we were one of the first, if not the first, to adopt th ballot machines. The original machine, I think Voting Machines was invented by a Rochester man. There ha in Rochester been a suggestion in Rochester that they should b abandoned, a very pronounced suggestion. There ha been difficulty; there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with them. O the other hand, there is a good deal of approval. We stand between th two views that have been expressed here to-day. Some years ago I wa the plaintiff in an action in relation to an election in which one or tw machines, one in particular, was clearly wrong. It registered 25% o the votes blank on the whole ticket voted for, which on the face of i is an absurdity. We tried to find out what was the matter with tha machine, and we haven't found out yet, and we never will, [Applause] because the laws that are framed by the legislature with reference t voting are framed for partisan purposes. One of the objections to votin machines is that they may be tampered with, and a great many peopl in Rochester think that they have been tampered with, and that the la which governs elections is so framed that if they are tampered with th discovery of it can never be made. So that when we consider the questio of ballot machines we must also consider the question of the electio law, and before any community determines to adopt a voting machin process of voting, it should look very carefully into the whole subjec because there are unquestionably two sides to it.

Voting Machines (Encyclopedia Americana, 1911)

VOTING MACHINE. The wave of ballot
reform which swept over the United States
of America immediately after the year 1888
firmly established the Australian or blanket
ballot as a factor in the election of practically
all the States of the United States of America.
This ballot was intended to encourage freedom
of choice on the part of the voters and while it
seemingly makes it easy to split the ticket (or
to cast an independent ticket) it ofttimes disfranchises
the voter because of his mistake
in marking it. The introduction of the Australian
ballot opened the way for voting machines
and demonstrated the need of them. The
voting machine is a mechanical Australian ballot,
haying for its object the correcting and
preventing of the abuses to which the Australian
ballot system is susceptible and expediting the
returns. It accords to each voter his full voting
privilege; it prevents him from making
mistakes that would take his ballot out of compliance
with the law, and makes it unnecessary
for the judges to inspect the ballot to determine
its legality. The machine counts the ballot
for each candidate at once, making it a part
of the total vote. When a vote is cast, the operating
devices are automatically reset and the
machine is again ready for operation by another
voter. Machines include safeguards
against frauds by election officers. They make
it more easy for the voter to accomplish his
work and prevent him, to a great extent, from
making a partial or complete failure in voting.
The use of them compels secrecy, reduces the
amount of labor involved on the part of election
boards, secures greater economy in the
expenses of election and gives the returns at
once on the closing of the polls.

The Requisites of a Complete and Legal
Voting Machine.-— A voting machine must
enable a voter to cast his vote in secret; that
is, so that no one can see or know for whom he has voted. The method of voting must be simple and within the comprehension of all classes; so that illiterate or blind persons, after receiving instruction, can vote without assistance. It must be convenient in its operation. It must permit a voter to vote for all the candidates nominated by any party, or to vote in part for the candidates of one party and in part for the candidates of other parties and provide for voting for persons who are not nominated by any party for any office. It must give the voter perfect freedom in his selection from any of the candidates without regard to their position on the machine. For some offices, but one candidate is to be voted for, for others two or more may be nominated by each party. It must be beyond the power of the voter to vote for more persons than he is entitled to vote for, or to vote twice. It must permit a voter to change his vote or correct a mistake, while he is in the booth; to split his electoral vote; voting on questions; limited or restricted voters (females or others) to exercise their rights under the law, but not to exceed them, either for candidates or questions. It must count, positively and accurately, every vote cast It must prevent defective ballots. The counters should be so placed that they can be conveniently examined before and after the election. All the moving parts should be controlled by locks, so that the register of the vote shown on the counters cannot be changed, thus maintaining a permanent record during the time prescribed by law. The voting machine must be so constructed that it cannot be unlawfully manipulated by anyone, under conditions that prevail in elections legally conducted. It must be able to bear the most rigid scrutiny of expert mechanics and others qualified to judge of the merits of such mechanism. There must be simple and positive action of the working parts, which must be so related that if misplaced by the voter either by accident or design, no injury will result from the further operation of the machine. The first voting machine built and actually used in an election was the invention of Jacob H. Myers; it was used in the election of the town of Lockport, N. Y., in 1892 and attained considerable use elsewhere in that State. This machine was legalized in the State of New York, as well as the States of Connecticut and Michigan. Afterward improved machines began to make their appearance. The inventions of Sylvanus E. Davis and Alfred J. Gillespie resulted in the Standard and United States Standard Voting Machines, which have attained the greatest use and perhaps the greatest celebrity in the voting-machine art. These machines are used extensively in the States of New York, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey and California. The election for the entire city of Rochester, N. Y., in 1898 was held by 73 of these machines and the election was the first complete and convincing demonstration of the practicability of using voting machines on a large scale. In Buffalo, N. Y., these machines have been used in the elections since 1899; the returns from all of the 108 election districts with over 60,000 voters have been received and tabulated at the city hall in 35 minutes and papers sold on the streets within one hour after the closing of the polls, although
the ticket was of considerable size, containing
some 150 candidates.
The United States Standard Voting Machine
has an upright keyboard, on which the party
rows of candidates and keys therefor are arranged
in horizontal lines with the lines of the
offices transverse thereto. At the end of each
party row, a lever is provided by means of \
vhich all of the keys of that party row may
to moved together to a voting position over
the names of the candidates nominated by that
party; or the keys may be moved separately
to a voting position over the names of the candidates
for which the voter desires to vote.
Before the voter can arrange his ticket he must
enter the booth by closing the curtain around
him to shield himself from the public, after
which he pulls either a party lever for straight
ticket voting or a releasing lever, to unlock the
keys to enable him to prepare his ballot independently.
The machine affords the voter an
cpportunity to cast a straight party ticket, to
split his ticket, to correct mistakes, to vote for
candidates not in nomination and gives him all
facilities to cast only a legal vote, which is sure
id lie counted as he indicates. If constitutional .
nicndmcnls or questions arc submitted to the
people, they can be voted on, provisions being
made to vote *yes* or "no" on all such questions
or amendments. By opening the curtain
the voter counts his vote and sets the machine
for the next voter. The total vote for each
candidate and question is given at once at the
close of the election. The machine is also
equipped with lockouts which are operated by ;
hc election officers to prevent particular voters
from voting for offices or on questions on which
they are not entitled to vote.
The machine is provided with a protective
counter which counts up to 1,000,000 and cannot
be reset, and reliably indicates whether the
machine has been operated or changed after it
has been prepared for an election, or after the
close of an The Abbot machine has had some use in the
State of Michigan, being legalized by the laws ii that State. It has all of the candidates for
cne office mounted on a slide, which can be ad- ;
it-tetl according to the wishes of the voter.
He can move the ofikc slides to the right or
to the left, so as to bring the name of the
inndidate desired into line with the operating ' .;
r, by the operation of which the vote is
registered on counters. The machine is limited,
however, in that it cannot group; that is,
juovide for the voting for two or more candidates
on one office line, which is always necessary
when two or more candidates are to be
elected to an office.
The Bardwell machine, which has been used
10 a limited extent, has the candidates arranged «•
office lines and party rows. When the voter
enters the booth, he is furnished with a key
which he inserts in the key-hole belonging to
the candidate he wants to vote for and turns it
ralf way around. This counts a vote for that
randidate and locks the other candidates for
the same office from receiving a vote, and by
repeating this operation on other office rows,
tin \oter is enabled to cast his vote as he de-'
sires for the whole ticket. In case he has made
a mistake by casting a vote for the wrong candidate,
he can withdraw this vote by again
vo;.. 28 — 13 inserting the key in its key-hole and turning it backward. Straight party tickets are counted on separate counters, the operation of which, by the voter, locks the balance of the counters against operation, but the total of the counters must be added to the counters of the candidates of that party at the end of the election. The machine is so arranged that it is impossible for two persons to vote at the same time or for a second voter to vote before the preceding voter has left the booth by the opposite direction from which he entered it.Consult Cleveland, F. A., 'Organized Democracy' (New York 1913) ; Luddington, A. C, 'American Ballot Laws' (Albany 1911); National Municipal League, 'Conference for Good City Government' (New York 1910). CARI. F. LOMII, United States Standard Voting Machine Company.

The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge. Encyclopedia Americana Corp, 1920. pp. 192-193

Ballot design and voting machines

Dated, October 20, 1916. E. E.
WOODBURY,
A ttorney-General.
To Hon. FRANCIS M. HUGO, Secretary of State, Albany, N. Y.
ELECTION LAW — VOTING MACHINES — BALLOTS.
A separate column is not required for each party upon a voting
machine; although where the capacity of a machine is such that eight
columns may he used, this might be permitted. Suggested arrangement
of columns for the election of 1916.
INQUIRY
Must each political party be allowed a separate column on voting
machine ?
OPINION
There has been submitted to me by your department a proposed
voting machine ballot. This shows a proposed method on an
eight-column machine.
There has also been submitted to me a proposed voting machine
ballot prepared by the voting machine companies, which has been
sent broadcast throughout the State. This is for a seven-column
machine.
You ask me if these ballots conform to the provisions of the
Election Law. In my opinion, both of them do.
However, there is certain criticism to be made of the ballot proposed
by the voting machine companies. It appears that although
it is designed for a seven-column machine, nevertheless, it does
not utilize the full capacity of the machine, only a few offices appearing
in the seventh column. This ballot was criticized by Mr.
Justice Crouch recently in a proceeding at Syracuse. The order
of the learned judge in forbidding the use of voting machines in
Syracuse, was, in fact, based upon the character of this ballot prepared
by the voting machine companies. My deputy, who was in
court, did not enter a formal appearance, and the order was entered
by consent. In any event, I hesitate to concur in the ruling made
by Mr. Justice Crouch as to the illegality of the ballot he construed.
As I have above stated, I believe it conforms with tb
law. However, it is crowded in its arrangement and rather confusing,
and there is no reason why the various election commissioners
of the different counties should not, so far as possible, facilitate
the purpose of the voters in casting their ballots, by providing
a more convenient arrangement.
The ballot for the eight-column machines which you snbmit to
me is arranged practically the same as that considered and tacitly
approved by Mr. Justice Sawyer in a proceeding in Rochester.
There being eight parties, the eight-column ballot as you have arranged
it, gives to each party a separate column in the order of
their relative strength as determined at the last election for Governor.
It is quite apparent that this provides for the vertical and
horizontal arrangement prescribed in the Election Law. The difficulty,
however, seems to have arisen where the seven-column machines
are used, with the consequent impossibility of giving each
party a separate column. As I advised you previously in a communication
relative to the arrangement of the names of candidate
for the Supreme Court of Buffalo, a separate column for each party
is not required by the Election Law, although when the capacity
of the machine permits, a separate column may be lawfully provided.
It is possible, for this reason, to modify the proposed method on
eight-column machines, suggested by you to the capacity of the
seven-column machine. It seems to me it would be perfectly lawful,
where the machines have only seven columns, to move the
American presidential electors from column 4 to 3, no presidential
electors having been nominated by the Independence League
Since the American party has endorsed the Republican candidate
for governor, it leaves only their candidates for other offices to be
disposed of. So far as the State ticket is concerned, it appears
that there is no contest between the Independence League and the
American candidates for other offices. The other candidates of
those two parties may therefore be placed together in column ?
with the least possible confusion. The entire Prohibition ticket
can then be moved from column 5, as it appears on the eight-
column ballot submitted, to column 4. The Progressive could be
moved from 6 to 5 and the Socialist from 7 to 6, and the Social
Labor from 8 to 7.. Since the Socialist party has nominated for
nearly all offices, it would perhaps be a better arrangement to
leave the Socialist presidential electors in column 7 instead of
moving them into the blank space of column 6, over the Progressive
candidates for other offices.
In my opinion the arrangement suggested would not only be
convenient but would also be lawful.
The arrangement suggested for the seven-column machine will
also provide space, especially in column 6, for filling in the names
of local candidates where there are many nominations and crowding
in other columns might result.
It is not my intention to suggest, however, that this arrangement
for a seven-column machine, or for an eight-column machine is
mandatory, or that they are in the opinion of this department, required.
However, you have submitted to me a proposed sample
ballot, and, of course, I confine myself simply to the statement of
opinion that the proposed sample ballot for an eight-column machine
and the suggestions for the arrangement of a ballot for a
seven-column machine may be lawfully carried out.

SOURCE:

Senate, New York (State). Legislature. Documents of the Senate of the State of New York. Printed by E. Croswell, 1917, pp. 385-387

Constitutionality of Voting Machines

B. Voting Machines

Under federal law, all votes for Representatives in Congress must be cast by written or printed ballot, or by "voting machine," the use of which has been duly authorized by state law. ⁿ⁶⁹ Furthermore, any votes received in violation of this statute are of no effect. ⁿ⁷⁰ Thus, before implementing an electronic voting system for [*961] use in federal elections, States must comply with this federal voting requirement. ⁿ⁷¹ In short, for votes to be valid in both state and federal elections, the voting machine on which they are cast must simply be authorized under state law.

Another obstacle facing Internet voting lies in the fact that several state constitutions require that "all elections shall be by ballot." ⁿ⁷² However, in some states, the local courts have interpreted "ballot" to mean a method of conducting elections that will ensure secrecy. ⁿ⁷³ In these cases, the courts have held that as long as the voting machine ensures secrecy, an election by ballot exists, and use of the voting machine has been upheld. ⁿ⁷⁴ Most courts liberally construe statutes and constitutional provisions as approving voting machines, unless state statutes expressly indicate otherwise. For example, where a constitution explicitly requires an election by written votes, the use of a voting machine was held invalid. ⁿ⁷⁵ Alternatively, in some states, the use of all types of voting machines is authorized by the constitution, subject to voters' approval and/or an enabling act by the legislature. ⁿ⁷⁶

In order to explicitly authorize the use of the Internet as a voting machine, new state statutes should specify the types of elections to be governed. For example, a state statute authorizing the use of voting machines in all state elections may be insufficient to cover the use of voting machines in federal primary elections. ⁿ⁷⁷ Statutes describing the physical attributes of a voting machine have been upheld, and this mechanism could be used to specify the Internet as an approved voting machine. ⁿ⁷⁸

Therefore, before an electronic voting system may be effectively used on election day, each State must comply with federal and state laws relating to voting machines. To comply with federal law, each State must authorize the voting machine under the applicable state law. ⁿ⁷⁹ Each State should ensure that its con- [*962] stitution, statutes or local election laws authorize the use of the Internet for ballot voting by either express or implied validation. ⁿ⁸⁰ Otherwise, any votes cast for federal officers under 2 U.S.C.A.

9 will be invalid. ⁿ⁸¹ By statutory definition, compliance with state law alone constitutes compliance with both federal and state laws regarding voting machines. ⁿ⁸²

"COMMENT: Electronic Ballot Boxes: Legal Obstacles to Voting Over the Internet." 1998 McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific McGeorge Law Review (1998).

Description of Dean Voting machine, 1907

This machine is a mechanical device for registering votes. In shape it is like a box. It is about [***2] three feet in height and two and one-half feet square upon its upper surface. It is used as follows: Immediately before the opening of the polls it is inspected by the election officers. There are certain dials on the machine, some registering the number of votes received by a candidate for office, and one which records the total number of voters casting ballots. All these dials are set at zero. The election officers see that a steel top is placed directly over the machine, upon which top is pasted the official list of candidates to be voted for and questions to be answered. This top is then locked by the election officers, and when it is so locked, it is impossible for any voter to see the dials which register the number of votes cast for the respective candidates, and all that the voter can see is the names of the various candidates and the language of the questions, and such other information in reference to the candidates as is required by law to be upon the ballot. As each voter gives his name when about to vote, he steps under a curtain connected with the machine, which curtain conceals the face of the machine and all of the mechanical device used for registering votes [***3] from the sight of the election officers. The voter sees upon the face of the machine only the names and information above mentioned, and a number against the name of each candidate. There is a blank space to the right of the number, and a key to the right of the blank space, about one-fourth of an inch square. The voter pushes down the key to the right of the name of each candidate for whom he desires to vote. The pushing down of the key causes a cross to be exposed in the blank space between the number and the key, but none of the dials registering votes is moved in consequence of the pressing down of the key. After he has marked a cross in this way against the name of each candidate for whom he desires to vote, he throws a lever, called the operating lever, from right [*412] to left, before which act he may change his cross from one candidate to another. This lever is attached to the machine, and the moving of it from right to left, and this alone, causes a dial connected with the name of each candidate so crossed to move, thereby registering a vote for each candidate whose name is crossed. The movement of this dial cannot be seen by the voter or by any one else. After [***4] the polls are closed, the election officers unlock the top on which the official list of candidates and questions is pasted, and read the dials, and make official returns of the votes cast for each of the respective candidates and questions in accordance with the figures shown upon the dial.

Lexis-Nexis

Partisan oppostion to voting machines, Rochester, NY

Those 1920's-what an uproarious, tawdry, brazen decade. It was the fool's paradise of the bull market and paper millionaires; the era of the prohibition mockery, of the Ku Klux Klan, of flappers and whoopee; of the speakeasy, the three raps at the door, the eye at the slot; of the bootlegger, the hijacker and the gangsters; of the trucks rolling down from Canada in the night, the rum boats slipping across the lake in the night; of the dry raiders and their swinging axes and the "bargain days" in the Federal Court.

On that stage Rochester saw a Puritan in Babylon play his role and he spoke his lines like a born actor. He was a short man, garbed all in black, with a string tie and a wing collar. His features were austere but a twinkle lurked in his deep set eyes. He was Clinton N. Howard, "The Little Giant," indefatigable foe of the liquor traffic and warrior in other camps of reform. A master of picturesque phraseology with an acute publicity sense, he thundered his Philippics in many states. He lashed public officials, high and low, with vitriolic pen and tongue. He was sued for slander by a Rochester woman whose place of business he branded "a snake hole" and he won out in a trial that had the town agog in 1924. His sword was seldom sheathed from the time he came to Rochester from his native Pennsylvania, a jobber of picture frames, in the mid 1890's until he departed for Washington a decade ago to direct reform groups.

Over at Police Headquarters in those days was pink-cheeked, bald, white mustached Detective Capt. John Patrick McDonald, a sleuth of the old school, who purred like a kitten one minute and the next roared like a hungry lion at a suspect; likeable "Captain Jack" with his keen insight into human nature and his airy tampering with the King's English.

On the political stage. there were many actors, for it was the stormy time of the Van Zandt-Wilson-Love rebellion in the GOP and of the City Manager government battle. Two stand out as pictur. esque. One was the Jeffersonian, Jacob Gerling, with his eternal cigar, his umbrella, his "bowler" hat and his ceaseless battle against the voting machine. On the Republican side there was Charles E. (Clip) Bostwick, leader of the Tenth, with his rakish hats, his reedy voice and his perennial insurgency.

Those same 1920's brought to Rochester the greatest building boom since "The Young Lion of the West" arose from the swamps a century before. So many buildings went up so fast you could hardly keep track of the skyline.

Skyscraper office buildings with towers and wings; churches, apartment houses, stores, countless homes, many in suburban tracts that had been fields; the magnificent new University "beside the Genesee;" the new Divinity School on its hilltop-they all bear witness to that golden age of expansion. The city built a twelve million dollar subway, a four million dollar bridge; schools that covered whole city blocks and golf club houses like Norman castles.

New voices swelled the clamor of that boom time, the sound movies and the radio. Remember those first head pieces and the battery sets?

And people bought stocks and Florida real estate and new automobiles, sang "Yes We Have No Bananas" and dreamed of living happily ever after in their fool's paradise.

Then the lights went out in Wall Street on a Black Friday in the fall of 1929 and the golden dream was over.

From Arch Merrill, Rochester Sketchbook (1946)

Early chad problems!

Problems in trial of McTammany machine in Worcester, Mass: " clogging of a machine by bits of paper punched from the ballots" (Washington Post, Nov 9, 1896, p. 6).

Voting machines and political machines

"The new constitution of New York, adopted last year, contains... a provision authorizing the use of a device called a voting mahine. This is not, as we understand the matter, the old contrivance long known by the familiar designation 'the political machine.' In fact the two machines re not on terms of mutual friendship, and the former will find great difficulty in getting itself into use in communities that are dominated by the latter" ("The Machine in Voting," Washington Post, May 27, 1895, p. 4).

Home rule

New York's 1894 voting machine legislation authorizes localities to adopt it "in accordance with the principle of 'home rule'" (NY Times, "The Automatic Voting Machine," May 6, 1894, p. 4).

Law authorizing use of Myers Automatic Ballot Machine in NY, 1894

Should two or more parties nominate the same person for the
same office, his name shall be printed upon the ballot of the
party which shall first nominate him, provided such nominee
within two days after his second nomination may by a written
instrument acknowledge as deeds are required to be acknowledged
for record, and filed with the county clerk of the
county, designate which one of such political parties in whose
column he desires his name to appear, and the county clerk
shall prepare his ballot for that party, and the ballots of
the other party or parties which shall have nominated him
shall be left blank for that office, and the corresponding
push-knob or push-knobs to the right of and opposite thereto
shall be capped so as to be inoperative.

1896 - Davis
1897- Boma Automatic Ballot Machine authorized

Note: This post is under construction...

Early voting machine patents

No.	Inventor	Filing Date	Issue Date	Description	Problem Statement	Features
415548	Myers, Jacob H. (Rochester, NY)	5/17/1889	11/19/1889	Token-slot mechanical vote registration and counting machine and booth with actuating doors (sprung mechanism)		automatic counting, independent audit trail (tokens), straight-ticket voting, interlocking, overvote protection, secrecy, entry/exit protection, exit actuation/reset
415549	Myers, Jacob H. (Rochester, NY)	5/17/1889	11/19/1889	Push-button mechanical registration and counting machine and booth with actuating doors (sprung mechanism)		automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, secrecy, entry/exit protection, exit actuation/reset
422891	Rhines, J.W. (St. Paul, MN)	12/7/1888	3/4 1890	Keyboard-actuated vote registration and counting machine with paper ballot printout		independent audit trail (printed paper ballot), secrecy
424332	Myers, Jacob H. (Rochester, NY)	12/24/1889	3/25/1890	Push-button mechanical registration and counting machine and booth with actuating doors (sprung mechanism) (improved)		automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, yes/no ballot measures, secrecy, entry/exit protection, exit actuation/reset
473913	Cline, George A Trimble, William (Toronto, CA)	1/2/1891	5/3/1892	Push-button mechanical vote registration and counting machine with geared mechanism	Ballot invalidation due to overvoting in Canadian national elections	automatic counting, total voter count, interlocking, secrecy, overvote protection
494588	Myers, Jabob H. (Rochester, NY)	8/23/1892	4/4/1893	Push-button mechanical voting machine and booth with sprung mechanism (improved)	Overcome "alleged deficiencies" of 415549 and 424332	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, yes/no ballot measures, secrecy, entry/exit protection, exit actuation/reset, timing mechanism, key locked for unprivileged voters, write-in votes
500001	Iles, Urban G. (St. Louis, MO)	9/22/1892	6/20/1893	Two-part system: card-punch apparatus and precinct-level registration system	Ensure "abslutely fair elections... a vote may be taken with great accuracy and rapidity... operated by voter of ordinary intelligence... not easily manipulated and will not get out of order	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting
501443	Roper, Charles F. (Worcester, MA)	1/31/1893	7/1//1893	Improved counting mechanism with direct, positive action; user can change choice before finalizing; voter verification of counter advancement	"... production of counting mechanism by which an honest ballot can be had, and the result registered, ready for inspection by the proper persons, immediately upon thye closing the polls, the ballot being secret, the said counting mechanism being so arranged that the voter may change his vote if, after casting it, he so desires...while at the same time the same candidate or different candidates for the same office cannot be voted for more than once by the voter... (4) In other voting mechanisms... it has been customary to rotate the counting disks by means of levers, pistons, or pawls, dependence being place upon springs or weights to insure action. In this invention I have dispensed with all such more or less complicated and unreliable devices [by direct gearing and positive action]... I also provide means whereby each voter can see that his vote is registered by partially exposing the units disk, so that its proper rotation may be observed" (4)	automatic counting, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, overvote protection, voter verification of counter advancement, vote change before finalization
502743	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	10/6/1892	8/8/1893	Paper ballot-marking mechanism with continuous paper roll	Eliminate expense of distributing ballots and "reduce risk of irregular and fraudulent voting"	secrecy, total vote count, office-block ballot
502744	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	10/31/1892		Ballot-punching mechanism with continuous paper roll	Improvement of 502745	secrecy, write-in votes, total vote count, office-block ballot
502745	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	3/17/1893	8/8/1893	Ballot-marking mechanism with automatically advanced paper roll	"Insure accuracy and secrecy of the result by the prevention of error and fraud in the marking the tally sheet and any dishonest manipulation afterward so that any vote properly marked on the tally-sheet may be readily distinguished from any improper additions... a mark made on the [tally sheet] will differ in character and appearance from a mark made after the tally sheet is withdrawn"	secrecy, office-block ballot
512699	Harmsen, Ludwig H. (Minneapolis, MN)	4/28/1893	1/16/1894	Ballot-marking mechanism with automatically advanced paper roll combined with push-key registration and counting mechanism	"Facilitating voting... recording and numbering the votes... expediting election returns... simplify and cheapen the construction of voting machines"	semi-automatic counting (voter must push in key as well as marking X), independent audit trail, voter verification (limited)
512994	Scotfield, John H. (Portland, OR)	5/21/1893	1/16/1894	Ballot-punching mechanism with electromagnetic detection	"Accurately count and register each vote for each candidate so that when the polls are closed the aggregatevote for each candidate will appear registered in a definite manner..."	automatic counting, voter verification (through locked glass window)
519494	Cutter, William M. (Marysville, CA)	11/17/1893	5/8/1894	Paddlewheel mechanical voting machine	"Simple, effective, and accurate voting machine"	automatic counting, interlocking, overvote protection
520609	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	12/2/1893	5/29/1894	Ballot-punching mechanism with automatically advanced paper roll adapted for straight ticket voting	"Provide for voting a straight party ticket by a single manipulation on the part of the voter"	secrecy, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, overvote protection (limited)
526668	Davis, Sylvanus (Rochester, NY)	6/13/1894	9/25/1894	Push-button mechanical voting machine and booth with actuating turnstile (improved, non-sprung mechanism)	"Improved voting machine -- a machine for enabling the public to vote at ordinary elections without printed ballots -- which shall be beyond the possibility of failure from mechanical causes... absolute prevention of fraudulent voting..."	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, yes/no ballot measures, secrecy, write-in votes, insertion of irregular ballots
530752	Dobbins, Douglas (Franklin, IN)	6/26/1893	12/11/1894	Ballot-stamping mechanism with automatically advanced paper roll	"Record votes and to prevent any interference with the voter, any knowledge of how he voted, any duplication of a vote [by voting more than one ballot], and any interference with the ballots."	secrecy
531818	Weber, Henry (North Temescal, CA)	4/9/1894	1/1/1895	Token-slot collection machine with overvote protection and cumulative voting features	"Reception and correct tallying of all votes which are cast at an election"	overvote protection, cumulative voting
531852	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	3/3/1894	1/1/1895	Crank-activated mechanical vote registration and counting machine for straight-party tickets and yes/no measures	"Simplify construction, compact the mechanism, guard effectively against fraudulent manipulation"	automatic counting, straight-party ticket voting, yes/no ballot measures
533315	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	5/10/1894	1/29/1895	Crank-activated ballot-punching mechanism for straight-party tickets and yes/no measures	"preventing repeating and for guarding against fraudulent manipulation"... "Each voter can readily ascertain if his vote has been properly recorded by looking into the perforation of the cover" (2)	secrecy, voter verification
534239	Abbot, Adrian O. (Hudson, MI)	11/1/1893	2/12/1895	Mechanical vote registration and counting mechanism activated by moving sliding counters into position and pressing an actuating button	None stated	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, overvote protection
536466	Gilbert, Frank H. (Ridgefield, WA)	5/19/1894	3/26/1895	Ballot-punching mechanism with automatically advanced paper roll	"Durable and economic in its construction... following voter will not be able to discover [previous votes] ignorant person may be able to vote a prescribed ticket in its entirely without making a mistake
537990	McGee, Patrick S. (Dodgeville, MA)	1/7/1895	4/23/1895	Lever-activated mechanical vote registration and counting machine	"shortening the time and enabling more voters to cast their ballots... provides safeguards against the practice of allowing any person to vote more than once for the same candidate..."	automatic counting, interlocking, write-in votes
542881	Ferguson, Thomas G (Colby, KA)	9/19/1894	7/16/1895	Dial-activated mechanical vote registration and counting machine with protected actuating booth	"provide a booth which is capable of being folded in a compact form for transportation" (without sacrificing entry/exit protection and exit actuation)	automatic counting, error correction, interlocking, overvote protection, entry/exit protection, exit actuation/reset
544996	Ducas, Salomon (San Francisco, CA)	4/8/1895	8/6/1895	Push-button ballot punching mechanism	None stated	automatic counting, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting
545848	Clifford, Hersey A. (San Francisco, CA)	5/28/1894	9/3/1895	Push-button ballot punching mechanism	None stated	interlocking, overvote protection
546076	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)	11/25/1893	9/10/1895	Spindle-activated vote registration and counting machine with audible feedback	"Reduce the size, weight, and number of parts in a voting machine... gaurd against fraud by preventing repeating, preserving secrecy, and rendering the machine proof against ballot-box stuffing and manipulation"	automatic counting, interlocking, overvote protection, tamper protection
548403	Stroup, Thomas D. (San Francisco, CA)	7/23/1895	10/22/1895	Push-button activated vote registration mechanism designed for cumulative voting	Cumulative voting	cumulative voting, overvote protection
549631	Davis, Sylvanus E. (Rochester, NY)	9/22/1894	11/12/1895	Push-button mechanical registration and counting machine and booth with actuating turnstile	Improvements on 514427 and 526668 (serial numbers)	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, yes/no ballot measures, secrecy, write-in votes, insertion of irregular ballots
549901	Davis, Sylvanus E. (Rochester, NY)	3/4/1895	11/19/1895	Push-button mechanical registration and counting machine and booth with actuating turnstile	Same as above with the addition of voter verification	automatic counting, straight-ticket voting, pure party column ballot, interlocking, overvote protection, cumulative voting, yes/no ballot measures, secrecy, write-in votes, insertion of irregular ballots
550052	McTammany, John (Spencer, MA)			Knob-turning actuated mechanical vote registration and counting machine for straight-party ticket voting and yes/no ballot issues	"use of individual ballots is dispensed with... rendering such an apparatus simple, compact, and easy to manage, and for guarding against fraud, insuring an accurate count, and preserving the secrecy of the ballot"	automatic counting, interlock protection (limited -- sounds alarm), straight-party ticket (no split ticket voting), yes/no issues

Doug Jones asks:
"I believe that it is reasonable to ask, why was the one family of paperless mechanical voting machines descended from Meyers' patents so successful, while so many of the alternatives, such as voter verified paper trails and precinct-count voter-verifiable punched-card machines became dead-ends that were forgotten."

Jacob H. Myers (415548, issued Nov 19, 1889)

This machine was designed to count tokens inserted into slots. Because the tokens were dropped into separate locked containers, these containers could function as an independent auditing mechanism in case there were concerns about the accuracy of the counters. No straight party ticket provisions are made.
"At the close of the election the number of ballots cast for each candidate can be immediately ascertained by an inspection of the counters without the necessity of counting the individual ballots. The conduit-sections 44 are now withdrawn from the slits in the ballot-boxes and the slides allowed to close and lock themselves, preventing any fraudulent manipulation of the contents which may be stored away, and should any contest arise the ballots may be counted, the sign or card in the inside of the lid serving to designate the candidate even if the one on the outside were displaced" (5).

Jacob H. Myers (415549, issued Nov 19, 1889)

This machine is a direct recording device that does not produce an independent audit mechanism. In contrast to Myers' other patent issued the same day, it does enable voters to vote a straight party ticket. It uses a straight party lever and push buttons for individual candidates.

"It is usually the case that voters wish to cast their ballots for all the nominees of a particular party, or 'vote a straight ticket,' as it is called, and in order to enable this to be done without the necessity of operating the individual ballot-indicating keys one at a time I provide bars 45, hinged on the division lines between the party divisions and arranged, when swung on the pivots 40 by means of handles 47, to come in contact with a line of ballot-pushes and operate them all simultaneously.... Sometimes, however, a voter desires to vote for one or more candidates in anotherparty, which of course would lock the remaining keys designating candidates for that office, and if no provision were made for this a single locked projected push would prevent the complete pushing in of the keys, as the bar 45 would be prevented from complete inward movement; but this I provide for by making the portions of the bar coming in contact with the push-keys so as to yield when any key is locked, thus permitting the movement of the bar necessary to properly operate the keys" (p. 4).

Jacob H. Myers (434332, issued March 25, 1890)

This is an improvement on Myers' push-key machine -- the token-drop machine did not receive subsequent development, apparently -- that adds two important features:

• Yes/no votes on ballot issues or constitutional amendments, with interlocking to prevent voting for both at one;
• Voting for two or more candidates for the same office (such as coroner).

Jacob H. Myers (494588, issued April 4, 1893)

Addresses "objections" raised to earlier patents in the push-key chain (415549, 434332):

• "In the practical operation of my improved machine it has been found desirable to limit the time that a voter may remain in the booth and in order that this be accurately determined without dispute, I provide a clock or timing mechanism..."
• "In the event that it is necessary for an officer to enter the booth to eject an unruly or dilatory voter it is desirable that he be prevented from ascertaining what the votes or ballots...are..."
• "Oftentimes it is desirable to lock the keys devoted to candidates for a particular office from operation to prevent persons not entitled to voting for such candidates..."
• "In order that persons not regular party nominees may be voted for and the same secrecy and security against fraud may be obtained that is possesed by the ballots cast by those voting the regular tickets I provide means..." (write-in votes)

Sylvanus E. Davis (526668, issued Sept 25, 1894)

This push-button mechanical voting machine closely resembles Myer's 494588 (1890) machine: it enables yes/no votes on ballot issues, voting for two or more candidates, and voting for a straight party ticket. However, the votes are not recorded until the voter leaves the booth. In addition, the device incorporates a feedback mechanism which displays to the voter which votes have been cast.

The object of my invention is the production of a voting machine ... which shall be beyond the possibility of failure from mechanical causes ... and so that no movement of the counting mechanism is possible, except that imparted to it by the voter. My invention also involves the absolute prevention of fraudulent voting (1) ... the vote-registering or counting mechanism... must be absolutely positive in its operation... it must be entirely independent of the action of springs, or any other devices which may occasionally fail to work... (3) the essential feature... [is] the securing of absolute certainty of registry by the maintenance at all times during the operation of the machine of a positive mechanical engagement between the interlocked pushes and the counting mechanism (10)

Sylvanus E. Davis (549901, issued )

This patent details several important improvements to the 1894 patent:
The votes are not counted, nor are the push keys returned to the normal position, until the voter has left the booth. This feature "absolutely prevents the possibility of fraudulent voting inside the booth" (3).
A revolving door actuates the counting mechanism and includes a counter "indicating the number of voters admitted to the booth" (8)
To accommodate New York's 1890 ballot legislation, which enables voters to affix pasters to the state-printed ballots, a mechanism is provided for "irregular voters" that enables the voter to deposit a paster for a particular office, in which case the push keys are locked for that office.
"In order to assure the voter while inside the booth that his manipulation of the pushes has operated the voting mechanism, I provide the counter shown in Figs 32 and 33, whicdh is arranged so as to be visible through a slot in the key-place... in case the straight ticket is voted all the counters which are visible to the voter will be operated simultaneously"

Urbanus Gray (1899)
My invention ... is especially designed to enable the voter to indicate the
candidate or candidates for whom he desires to vote upon a ticket having
the names of the candidates printed thereon and at the same time to
register his vote or votes by means of an apparatus designed for the
purpose.
... This enables the voter ... to punch a hole in the margin opposite the
name of the person for whom he desires to vote, the plan being the same
as that of the “Australian Ballot,” so called, ... In this case, the hole being
punched through, it is impossible to erase or otherwise destroy the record
of the vote.
... In this manner we have a mechanical check for the tickets, while the
ticket is also a check on the register.

Voting machine patents

Note: This post is under construction...

Early voting machine patents

415,548, Nov. 19, 1889, J. H. Myers, Voting Machine
415,549, Nov. 19, 1889, J. H. Myers, Voting Machine
424,332, Mar. 25, 1890, J. H. Myers, Voting Machine
438,624, Oct. 21, 1890, O. H. Hasselman, Election Booth.
440,545, Nov. 11, 1890, K. Dougan, Ballot Holder.
475,013, May 17, 1892, J. Hanley, Folding Election Booth.
480,925, Aug. 16, 1892, A. A. Hinkley, Voter's Compartment and Shelf.
481,571, Aug. 30, 1892, J. Jones, Election Booth.
494,588, Apr. 4, 1893, J. H. Myers, Voting Machine.
500,001, June 20, 1893, U. G. Iles, Ballot Registering Device (punched paper)
526,668, Sept. 25, 1894, S. E. Davis, Voting Machine
590,942, Sept. 28, 1897. J. Boma, Booth for Voting Machine
620,767, Mar. 7, 1899, J. A. Gray, Voting Machine (punched paper)
622,191, Mar. 28, 1899, J. H. Dean, Voting Machine
658,771, Apr. 12, 1900 Otmar Gattrell, Voting Machine (paper)

Doug Jones asks:

"I believe that it is reasonable to ask, why was the one family of paperless mechanical voting machines descended from Meyers' patents so successful, while so many of the alternatives, such as voter verified paper trails and precinct-count voter-verifiable punched-card machines became dead-ends that were forgotten."

Jacob H. Myers (415548), issued Nov 19, 1889)

This machine was designed to count tokens inserted into slots. Because the tokens were dropped into separate locked containers, these containers could function as an independent auditing mechanism in case there were concerns about the accuracy of the counters. No straight party ticket provisions are made.

"At the close of the election the number of ballots cast for each candidate can be immediately ascertained by an inspection of the counters without the necessity of counting the individual ballots. The conduit-sections 44 are now withdrawn from the slits in the ballot-boxes and the slides allowed to close and lock themselves, preventing any fraudulent manipulation of the contents which may be stored away, and should any contest arise the ballots may be counted, the sign or card in the inside of the lid serving to designate the candidate even if the one on the outside were displaced" (5).

Jacob H. Myers (415549, issued Nov 19, 1889)

This machine is a direct recording device that does not produce an independent audit mechanism. In contrast to Myers' other patent issued the same day, it does enable voters to vote a straight party ticket. It uses a straight party lever and push buttons for individual candidates.

"It is usually the case that voters wish to cast their ballots for all the nominees of a particular party, or 'vote a straight ticket,' as it is called, and in order to enable this to be done without the necessity of operating the individual ballot-indicating keys one at a time I provide bars 45, hinged on the division lines between the party divisions and arranged, when swung on the pivots 40 by means of handles 47, to come in contact with a line of ballot-pushes and operate them all simultaneously.... Sometimes, however, a voter desires to vote for one or more candidates in anotherparty, which of course would lock the remaining keys designating candidates for that office, and if no provision were made for this a single locked projected push would prevent the complete pushing in of the keys, as the bar 45 would be prevented from complete inward movement; but this I provide for by making the portions of the bar coming in contact with the push-keys so as to yield when any key is locked, thus permitting the movement of the bar necessary to properly operate the keys" (p. 4).

Jacob H. Myers (434332, issued March 25, 1890)

This is an improvement on Myers' push-key machine -- the token-drop machine did not receive subsequent development, apparently -- that adds two important features:

• Yes/no votes on ballot issues or constitutional amendments, with interlocking to prevent voting for both at one;
• Voting for two or more candidates for the same office (such as coroner).

Jacob H. Myers (494588, issued April 4, 1893)

Addresses "objections" raised to earlier patents in the push-key chain (415549, 434332):

• "In the practical operation of my improved machine it has been found desirable to limit the time that a voter may remain in the booth and in order that this be accurately determined without dispute, I provide a clock or timing mechanism..."
• "In the event that it is necessary for an officer to enter the booth to eject an unruly or dilatory voter it is desirable that he be prevented from ascertaining what the votes or ballots...are..."
• "Oftentimes it is desirable to lock the keys devoted to candidates for a particular office from operation to prevent persons not entitled to voting for such candidates..."
• "In order that persons not regular party nominees may be voted for and the same secrecy and securityagainst fraud may be obtained that is possesed by the ballots cast by those voting the regular tickets I provide means..." (write-in votes)
  

Sylvanus E. Davis (1894)

The object of my invention is the production of a voting machine ... which shall be beyond the possibility of failure from mechanical causes ... and so that no movement of the counting mechanism is possible, except that imparted to it by the voter. My invention also involves the absolute prevention of fraudulent voting, ...

Urbanus Gray (1899)

My invention ... is especially designed to enable the voter to indicate the
candidate or candidates for whom he desires to vote upon a ticket having
the names of the candidates printed thereon and at the same time to
register his vote or votes by means of an apparatus designed for the
purpose.
... This enables the voter ... to punch a hole in the margin opposite the
name of the person for whom he desires to vote, the plan being the same
as that of the “Australian Ballot,” so called, ... In this case, the hole being
punched through, it is impossible to erase or otherwise destroy the record
of the vote.
... In this manner we have a mechanical check for the tickets, while the
ticket is also a check on the register.

Photo gallery: U.S. Standard Voting Machine, 1903

Photo gallery: Myers Automatic Booth

"My present invention ... has for its objects to provide one by the employment of which an honest vote can be had and counted without liability of voters being intimidated, the balloting being secret, or of their voting more than once for the same candidate or different candidates for the same office, and as the votes are counted as fast as the voter indicates his preference the total number cast for each candidate can be ascertained rapidly and accurately at the close of the polls" (Jacob H. Myers).

Voting the straight party ticket

From a 1922 civics textbook...

"The "party column" ballot is used in most states. It tends to make the voter cast his ballot for all the candidates of the party (that is, to vote a "straight ticket"), since all he needs to do in marking his ballot is to place a cross mark in the circle at the top of the column; naturally the "party column" is the favorite form of ballot with politicians. On the other hand, the "office column" ballot encourages independent, intelligent voting, since a person must indicate by a cross mark each candidate for whom he votes and thus must look over the entire ballot. A few communities have introduced voting-machines. Where they are used the voter records his vote by pulling knobs or handles on the machine instead of by putting marks on a ballot. Since the machine counts each vote as it is registered, the result is known as soon as the polls close. In spite of this advantage the machine is opposed by many people because of its cost, complexity, and influence on independent voting. Since the machine is confusing and citizens are usually allowed but one or two minutes to use it, most people will vote a "straight ticket" rather than bother to study out what levers to pull in order to show their real preference among the various candidates for office" Hill 1922: 520-522).

Opposition to voting machines in Chicago, 1912

"LOESCH LOESCH of the Postal Telegraph Cable Company, from n 1894 to 1906, and from its organization in July, f 1913, to the present date (1923) has been gen- s eral counsel for the Chicago Union Station I Company... Another conspicuous public service for which Mr. Loesch was responsible was that in connection with the attempt to force the use of voting machines at the Presidential election in November, 1912. Voting machines had been purchased at an expense of something like a million dollars of which a quarter of a million had been paid by the City. The voting machines were authorized by the Legislature. It appeared certain that if only voting machines were used, not less than fifty thousand and probably a nuch larger number of voters would be disenfranchised, with the result of making a clean weep for the Democratic party in the City. Lawyers were not willing to attack the law, nd held, at any rate, that it was too late. After a critical examination of the voting machine and the law, he gave it ' as his opinion to the Citizens Committee then acting, that the voting machine law was inrequest h e brought mandamus proceedings in the Supreme Court of the State of Il- T linois against the Election Commissioners, within five weeks before election, and obtained an order of the court to produce an election machine before the full Supreme Court at the hearing of the case which was summarily set for a short day. The court ordered practical tests made of the machine in its presence, an unprecedented thing, and rendered an opinion that the machines could not comply with the law. They, therefore, granted the prayer of the petitioners that the voting booths should be restored but permitted the machine to be voluntarily used by such voters as chose to use them. The result at the election indicated that the machines were worthless in this state by reason of the long ballot and the complicated voting. They were discarded and the public was saved on the first purchase of the machines three-quarters of a million dollars. In subsequent litigation brought by the voting machine manufacturers, the court held the contract to purchase the machines invalid, and released the city from all liability thereunder" (Wilson et al. 1915: 193).

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Knifing

"Oh, that was a fine Primary!" said the third of the group, with a long-drawn emphasis on the " fine." "It was as good as any other Primary held in New York," retorted the Alderman, doggedly. "Maybe it was," said the spokesman, who had been endeavoring to control himself for some time, " but we know what your Primary was. You printed the only ticket voted for, didn't you ? And you made up that ticket in that little room there, didn't you ?" pointing to an enclosed space of about four feet square. " And you promised to have my name on it, but you didn't," he continued, rapidly. " You printed three hundred tickets with eighty delegates on them, and you handed each of your own men a handful of them to put into the ballot box, which was in charge of Mike Hickey, Jim Downs, and Jake Slinskey, -- that you appointed messenger for Judge Cardozo,-- then your gang wouldn't let any one near the polls, let alone to vote; and then your inspectors certified that the two hundred and fifty votes were cast for your delegates, when you didn't have more than fifty people there ; and then you have the face to ask why we didn't go to the Primary and vote!" (Breen 1898: 160-161)

Problems interpreting marks on paper ballots - New York

New York's 1896 election law defined a valid voting mark as "one straight line crossing another straight line" (Laws of 1896, Chapter 909, Sec. 105). Subsequently, the courts interpreted the law liberally; still, the law specified that there should be one straight line crossing line. As a result many ballots were invalidated. For example, the court of appeals (In Matter of Fallon) held the following marks to be valid:

But rejected these:


"Unsatisfactory conditions in many polling places, poor eyesight, and clumsy fingers result in a multitude of irregular voting marks in every polling place at every election...., so that the courts early recognized that, to hold every ballot void on which a mark was found which was not a 'single' cross mark consisting of 'one straight line crossing another straight line' would be to annually disenfranchise a substantial portion of the electorate and make elections a farce. Thus the courts, from the first, imposed upon the statutory definition of a cross mark the further question of the voter's intent -- was his mark made for the purpose of voting or did he intend to identify his ballot?—and if they found that the voter did not mark his ballot for identification, they held the ballot valid. Yet once the courts departed from the statutory definition, they found themselves in a legal puzzle department that permitted of an endless diversity of guess work for its various solutions. This condition led to recounts every year, which did nothing but afford opposing counsel an opportunity to display ingenuity as to what the various voters intended; and an examination of some of the highest court's decisions in the Fallon case indicates that, in recounts at least, it was truly only 'the court of last conjecture.'" (Saxe 1913: 113-114). The Saxe law of 1911 addressed this problem by legalizing any line crossing any other line (111).

Voting machines in New York -- a chronology

1888-1889

• Legislature: Australian ballot bills presented to Governor David B. Hill (D), who vetoes them. New York City and Kings present a "monster petition of 100,000 voters" against ballot reform.

1890

• Legislature: Republican legislature, led by Saxton (Senate), compromises on Australian ballot, and Hill signs. Provisions: State printing and distribution of ballots, parties with at least 1 percent of the vote in previous election could nominate candidates, separate ballot printed for the nominees of each party in a single column, secret election, no unofficial distribution of ballots, no electioneering near polling places; employers cannot deter employees from voting (Ivins 1906: 28). Voters could use pasters on the ballots.

1892

• Voting machines: "The first state law authorizing the use of automatic machines was passed by New York in 1892, allowing towns to use the Myers automatic balloting cabinet at elections of town officers (New International Encyclopedia: 442).
• Legislature: General Election Law enables parties to establish rules concerning who may vote in their primaries, allows independent nominations for statewide offices only if 3,000 voters petition (city; 500, country).

1894

• Constitutional convention: Constitution revised and ratified. Voter registration required for cities of 5,000 plus 10 days before election by personal application. Bipartisan election boards. "All elections by the citizens, except for such town officers as may by law be directed to be otherwise chosen, shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law, provided that secrecy in voting be preserved.
  
• Legislature: Counties of New York, Kings, Queens, Richmond, and part of Westchester combined into a single city, Greater New York (to dilute power of Tammany, probably): Greater New York.
• Voting machines:Voting machine use "authorized in all elections" (New International Encyclopedia: 442). Must provide columns or rows for at least 7 parties or organizations. Must have a "single straight ticket device for each party, must also permit the voter to vote for any person for any office, whether or not nominated by any party or organization, and must permit voting in absolute secrecy" (Saxe 1913: 123). In counties where one half or more of the towns had authorized the use of the machine at town meetings the board of supervisors might also authorize its use at all elections held in such towns, and in cities, except New York and Brooklyn, the use of the machine at all elections might be authorized by the common council.
  

1895

• Legislature: General Election Law revised. Nominations by primary or convention of any party receiving 10,000 votes in the State or 10% of the votes in a district for which the primary or convention is held. Party symbols introduced. Blanket ballot (one page), pure party column, party symbol and party box at top of column. "And just as the law made it easy to vote the so-called 'straightticket' -- in other words, placed a premium upon the acceptance by the votger of the dictation of the machine from the top to the bottom of the ballot -- it made it difficult for trhe voter to select aqnd vote for individual candidates independently of parties; in other words, it made it impossible in practice, and upon a large scale, for voters to exercise this individual choice by what is known as 'splitting' -- one of the very greatest defects of our present system, the weakness and wrongfulness of which is illustrated by the fact that in the last election in New York city the system practically broke down..." (Ivins 1906: 36) Legislature amended election law to provide for single, "blanket ballot" (party column design).

1896

• Legislature: Election law comprehensively rewritten.

1897

• Legislature: First permanent State voting machine commission established in New York (New International Encyclopedia: 442).

1898

• Legislature: Previously, membership on party committees was determined by parties alone. The primary election law of 1898 established that membership in party committees should be governed by primary elections -- committees were constructed from the bottom up instead of from the party leaders down.
• Voting machines: "The Standard machine had its first trial April 12, 1898 in a town election. During the Presidential election in 1900 it was used in a large number of cities in towns in New York State, including Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, Ithaca, and Poughkeepsie" (New International Encyclopedia: 442).

1909

• Legislature: Primary election laws, as amended, consolidated with election law comprehensively.

1911

• Legislature: Democrats take control of legislature and elect a governor in 1910. Anti-fusion ballot law passed (Levy Law). If a candidate is presented more than once, he must be identified as one and only one party's candidate and be listed in that party's column. Fusion endorsements cannot place the candidate's name in their column; instead, there is a cross-reference (e.g., "See Republican Party"). Provision later ruled unconstitutional. "It requires little practical political experience or study of ballot laws to see that these provisions would affect adversely only parties desirous of fusing against a common enemy, and that they would put obstructions chiefly in the patth of the independent and discriminating voter who might wish to split his ballot" (Bard 1912: 40). Also, (1) a fusion party's ballot appears to be incomplete and these receive fewer votes; (2) some voters won't vote for anyone in a certain party's column but would have voted for the candidate if he had been in the fusion party's column; (3) straight-ticket voting encouraged because fusion voter can't mark a party mark but must hunt through whole ballot. Example: member of Civic Alliance in 1909 would have had to make 16 marks instead of one (41); (4) fusion parties would cease to exist because they had few candidates of their own and would not have gotten the 10,000 votes needed to stay on ballot in next election. Ruled unconstitutional by Court of Appeals, "In the Matter of Hopper," 203 N.Y. 144. Also passed by legislature in 1911: "No ballot shall be deemed void because a cross-mark thereon is irregular in character." Direct Primary law enabled voters to choose candidates instead of party committees or conventions, except that statewide candidates could be nominated at conventions.

1914

Legislature: Blauvelt bill established Massachusetts ballot

1921

• Legislature: "New York make the use of voting machines obligatory in cities of the first class (Laws 1921, ch. 391, p. 1228). It is provided that machines must have bee installed in twelve per cent of the polling places in the cities affecte in time for the general election of 1921, in thirty-five per cent of th polling places by 1922, and by 1923 they must be in use in all pollin places. If the proper local authorities fail to make provision for th use of voting machines, the secretary of state may take the necessary action" (West 1922: 462)

Lever voting machines in upstate New York, 1892-1912

Bergen, NY (1894)

"Registered 100 votes more than the registry of the polling list"

Mr. Dean -- ... In the little town of Bergen, in the northwestern part of this State, the Myers balloting machine was put on trial last year in the election of supervisors. The result of that election was that the Myers ballot machines registered 100 votes more than the registry of the polling list of that town. And yet we are asked to open the way to all kinds of experiments in that direction (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 95).

Buffalo, NY (1894)

ANSLEY WILCOX, of Buffalo: One special matter was mentioned by Mr Osborn which I think it is worth while to present more fully because w here in Buffalo have had a chance to try it out in our experience, an we can show you something before you go away which some of yo have never seen before,—that is the voting machine.

Buffalo, I think, is the largest community which has adopted and fo many years has used the voting machine. Up to this year it has be correct to say that our voting machines have played us absolutely true, and we have had no reason to be dissatisfied with them. We have had our election returns, after the close of the polls, more quickly than any other large community, and there has been less trouble in the way of questions about the accuracy of the results than one would believe possible. Certainly, as compared with the condition of things which existed before, when we voted on paper ballots, either in the early stage when parties and individuals got up their own ballots, or in the late stage when the state furnished official ballots, our voting machines have been an enormous improvement in celerity, in certainty of work and in the removal of a large class of questions which are involved in th general subject of corrupt practices at elections. Tampering with board of elections, holding back of returns, falsifying returns to meet the necessities or supposed necessities, of candidates for majorities larger or smaller as the case may be, all those things have been entirely done away with by the use of these ballot machines.

It is important to speak of this at this time because any failure of voting machine attains great publicity, and it has already been broadcast through the country that in the recent election last week two of our machines obviously did fail. That subject is being investigated t0day before the board of canvassers, the board of supervisors of th county of Erie. The two machines are over at the City Hall and the fault is going to be found out, whatever it is. One or two candidate received several hundred votes less than they were entitled to, while th rest got the proper number,—there was some fault in the mechanism. [505]

Up to this moment the party whose candidates were injured by that false result does not suspect any intentional wrong-doing. It simply seem to be a breakdown of those two machines. Very peculiarly two machine performed the same tricks, and against the same candidates, bu it does not seem to be possible that they could have been intentionall fixed in such a way as to do that thing. Notwithstanding that, up to the present time, I want to say on behalf of the people of Buffalo that we believe in the voting machine, and we know that the voting machine has taken the place of human agencies for recording and counting votes, in a way that has done a great deal for purity in our elections for many years.

But I want to go further, and point out one or two other things the may accomplish. It has always been remarkable to us in Buffalo that our friends in New York City have never adopted voting machines as means of curing some of the evils they complain of; and the objection always made to them have been these : first, the heavy expense involved, owing to the fact that they are patented machines. The original cost I believe, was some five or six hundred dollars each. That may possibly be reduced now, but being a patented machine, probably not very much reduced. Buffalo uses 115, and has to have more in store. New York City would use twelve or fifteen hundred, or even more. The initial cost is great, but after that they reduce the annual expense of the elections very largely.

The second objection is to the absence of secrecy, because with th machine the voting is done by pulling a lever, and that does make a perceptible noise. The person who goes in and votes a straight party ticket makes one click only. Of course, if there are constitutional amendment they make one or two or three more sounds, if he votes for them. Bu usually a paid voter would be persuaded not to vote for these, but t vote one click, thereby recording a straight party vote for the candidate and no more. If another lever is moved it can be heard. That does, to a slight degree, remove the secrecy of voting, although it is all done behind curtains where it cannot be seen.

As to the expense, the great cost of this machine comes from its patentable quality. It is due to the complication of the mechanism, which records the votes of a great many candidates by pulling one general lever, and also individual votes by pulling individual levers. You can pull a party column lever and vote for them all. You can move back, if you are voting the Republican ticket, the pointer of a Republican candidate and vote for a Democratic candidate in a different column on the same line, and also sometimes on a different line. Those are the complication which are covered by patents, and which make the machine expensive, and also make it dangerous, liable to break down because of its complexity. Now, with a simple machine, with the names of the candidates [506] arranged alphabetically, or at least not in party columns, and a lever opposite each one, by pulling that lever it records on a single dial and there is no other means of moving that dial. I am prepared to say that such a machine would not be patentable, because this mechanism has long been used all over the world. With the elimination of patents will disappear the great expense of the machine, and the chances of breakdown will disappear because of the simplicity of the mechanism.

As to the question of secrecy, such a machine will click for every man you vote for, and nobody is going to stop to count whether it click five or seven or nine or eleven times, when so many men are on the ticket. You may vote for one man and move the pointer back and vote for another, for these machines do not record until you come out. You can change a much as you like while you are in the voting space. The recording is done when you throw back the curtain. The entire objection on the ground of secrecy would be removed if we had this form of ballot. Those are considerations which make me think that the urging of the ballot machines will be an auxiliary to help in the general movement for ballot reform, because it is so obvious that a machine constructed on those simple lines will be safe, economical, entirely secret and as expeditious as lightning in recording the vote. The vote is recorded the instant the voting is concluded (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 505-507).

Chautauqua County, NY (1894)

"Every town rejected them"

Mr. McKinstry — ... We had nine of the Myers ballot machines on trial last spring in Chautauqua county, and every town rejected them. I could give you a very interesting history of our experience with ballot machines, but refrain from using the time of the Convention. I consider the liability of such machines to get out of order as fatal to their usefulness (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 98).

Ithaca, NY (1898)

'The machines retain all the virtues and exclude all the vices of the old methods of balloting.'

In New York, voting machine can be employed until has been fully inspected, carefully studied and unqualifiedly approved, by the Voting Machine Commission ; from whom a report must be secured, and filed in the office the Secretary of State, to the effect that machine is capable of registering six hundred voters in the election hours, accurately and efficiently, can be safely employed that purpose, and that the Legislature the State is justified in legalizing its use. Under these provisions of law, the cities Buffalo, Rochester. Utica, Ithaca and other smaller places, have now used the machines in regular elections. In one or two places, older forms of machine, introduced before the commission for their inspection and endorsement was formed, have not proved satisfactory ; but the later experiments have been entirely so, and Buffalo has 108, Rochester 73, and other places lesser numbers, all of which are reported have proved a marvelous success. One of these machines costs $500, registers a maximum, under the law—there is limit in construction—600 voters, at a rate of 5 to 15 seconds each voter, saves $16 a year in cost of operating a precinct, $40 to $50 in election printing, and, by enabling a reduction to be made in the number election precincts, saves about $200 on each one abolished. In Ithaca, the reduction, the law is followed precisely, will be no less than two nor more than four district out of ten ; saving the city from twenty forty per cent, net on the investment.

The following were the conclusions reported I the Fina.uce Committee to the City Council and the people of Ithaca : "Summarizing our conclusions your Finance Committee would respectfully submit that

(1) The voting machine is a simple, reliable, durable, and convenient apparatus for its purpose.

(2) The machine compels the deposit of a perfect and accurate ballot, of the form chosen hy the voter.

(3) It restricts the voter absolutely to the limits of the law and permits him freedom as absolute in voting within that limit.

(4) Blank and defective ballots, the usual fault of ordinary methods of voting, are entirely done away with and no man loses his vote through defect of the system, or fault of his own, if he votes at all. The disfranchised voter becomes unknown. "

(5) Fraudulent voting is impossible as well as errors in voting.

(6)The vote cast is registered, vote by vote, with absolute accuracy and certainty.

(7) The result can be declared immediately upon the close of the polls, having been already completely counted.

(8) The cost of the system is so much lees than that of the old method that the machines usually pay for themselves in from three to seven years.

The whole case may be summarized in a sentence: 'The machines retain all the virtues and exclude all the vices of the old methods of balloting'" (Thurston 1898: 918-919).

Rochester, NY (1894)

"A great many people in Rochester think that they have been tampered with."

MR. HOSIER: We have had voting machines in Rochester. think we were one of the first, if not the first, to adopt th ballot machines. The original machine, I think Voting Machines was invented by a Rochester man. There ha in Rochester been a suggestion in Rochester that they should b abandoned, a very pronounced suggestion. There ha been difficulty; there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with them. O the other hand, there is a good deal of approval. We stand between th two views that have been expressed here to-day. Some years ago I was the plaintiff in an action in relation to an election in which one or two machines, one in particular, was clearly wrong. It registered 25% of the votes blank on the whole ticket voted for, which on the face of i is an absurdity. We tried to find out what was the matter with that machine, and we haven't found out yet, and we never will, [Applause] because the laws that are framed by the legislature with reference to voting are framed for partisan purposes. One of the objections to voting machines is that they may be tampered with, and a great many people in Rochester think that they have been tampered with, and that the law which governs elections is so framed that if they are tampered with the discovery of it can never be made. So that when we consider the question of ballot machines we must also consider the question of the electio law, and before any community determines to adopt a voting machin process of voting, it should look very carefully into the whole subjec because there are unquestionably two sides to it (Steele and Fitch 1900).

In Rochester the Myers ballot-machine was devised some years ago, an much labor and a good deal of money were invested in perfecting and manufacturing it. The general plan of in was good and it worked pretty well, but there were mechanical difficulties about it, and it has since been beaten by other and later machines, to the sorrow of some investors (Harper's Weekly, Jan 20, 1900, p. 65).

Warsaw, NY (1894)

"It is simple; it is secret; it is effective."

Mr. Augustus Frank — Mr. Chairman, it occurs to me that it may be of interest to the members of this Convention to hear something in relation to the workings of the machine which this proposed amendment will give to the electors of the State. For two years past it has been in use in the town of Warsaw, in which I reside, and with complete success. I do not think there is a single voter there who is in any way opposed to its continued use. It is simple; it is secret; it is effective. It does its work thoroughly, and when the polls close the result of the vote as to each candidate voted for is immediately announced (Steele and Fitch 1900: I, 926).

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Why state party elites hated political machines

1888

"Besides, there could be no 'private business' done"

The City of New York is divided into two great loca political camps, which are ostensibly hostile, but for th most part and in a certain sense friendly. Each is conducte under certain rules and regulations, committees an sub-committees, which in their collective capacity constitut the Machine. In control of each Machine is a Boss, and certain number of Deputy Bosses, of greater or less degre of power, according to the value of each as a political o financial agent of the Boss-iu-Chief. These Machine Bosses great and small, have no idea of being in politics except fo the purpose of obtaining office either for themselves o their immediate followers, and getting money directly o indirectly out of the City Treasury. This has been th condition of New York from the early days of Tweed, exceptin that in his time, as explained in a former letter, th direct method of public plunder was in vogue, while th approved system of modern times is the indirect method hecause in the first place it is the safer, and in the nex place more money can be abstracted from the jx>ckets o the people without their noticing it. These two camps o Machine politicians—the Tammany and the Republican make a great public noise in denouncing each other, hu this is done, in most cases, with a view of throwing sand in he people's eyes and their antagonisms at the worst ar only limited. For instance: if Tammany in an approachin election sees no opposition except the Republica organization, then it talks out bravely, loudly proclaimin that it will make no compromise with the enemy, and tha it requires no assistance from any outside source, but will go it alone." Prior to the late Constitutional amendm of 1897, separating National and State from City elect and in years when a Presidential or Gubernatorial electio took place, Tammany could, as the saying is, nominate '' yellow dog " or " a wooden Indian " and elect it to an office in the City government. On such occasions Tamman would appeal to the patriotism of all Democrats, an call upon them, by all that was sacred, to stand firmly b their party, to uphold the principles of Democracy an strike down the Republican oligarchy that threatened th very existence of the Republic. Tinder these inspirin appeals, Tammany would nominate local officers whose character and almost identity, were in many cases lost in th excitement and furore of the National or State elections If, 011 the other hand, a strong, independent movemen had arisen, threatening to divide the Democratic vote o local issues, and possibly elect, let us say, an independent or anti-Machine, Mayor, then it was that the Machine me of both camps joined hands, of course not on the surface but down, down underneath, and determined that no calamit like that of an independent Mayor should upset politica methods in New York. Of course the Republica Machine could not openly support a Tammany candidate nor could it elect a candidate of its own, but it coiild do th next best thing ; it could, by nominating a dummy candidate BO divide the opposition to Tammany, that that organization' triumph was assured.... Among the many "deals" between the political Machines in this city, that which culminated in the election of Hugh J. Grant for Mayor in 1888, was very transparent. Abram S. Hewitt, a Democrat of national reputation, had been concluding his term of Mayor, during which his independent course had given offence to Machine men generally, and to those of Tammany Hall in particular. He was looked upon for several months prior to election as the choice of all the anti-Tammany forces for re-election. Hewitt was acceptable to a large number of Republicans. But, on the other hand, what use could the Machine Republicans make of him? Far better, it seemed to them, would it be to make Grant Mayor rather than Hewitt, who although he might appoint Republicans to office, would never appoint the kind of men the Republican machine wanted. Besides, there could be no "private business" done under Hewitt's administration. So, with a great deal of flourish, the Republicans nominated Joel B. Erhardt for Mayor, knowing full well that this action was throwing the election of Mayor and the other municipal officers to Tammany hall (Breen 1898: 826-8)

1905

[In New York City] it was frequently the case that majority (Democratic) and minority (Republican) workers joined hands, the majority men paying the minority leaders to be quiet and not "put up a fight." In the district now under examination, just the opposite of this is frequently the case, the Democratic workers going to sleep and being pleasantly rewarded for their somnolence (Speed 1905: 422).

Lever voting machines in upstate New York, 1892-1912

Bergen, NY

"Registered 100 votes more than the registry of the polling list"

Mr. Dean -- ... In the little town of Bergen, in the northwestern part of this State, the Myers balloting machine was put on trial last year in the election of supervisors. The result of that election was that the Myers ballot machines registered 100 votes more than the registry of the polling list of that town. And yet we are asked to open the way to all kinds of experiments in that direction (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 95).

Buffalo, NY

ANSLEY WILCOX, of Buffalo: One special matter was mentioned by Mr Osborn which I think it is worth while to present more fully because w here in Buffalo have had a chance to try it out in our experience, an we can show you something before you go away which some of yo have never seen before,—that is the voting machine.

Buffalo, I think, is the largest community which has adopted and fo many years has used the voting machine. Up to this year it has be correct to say that our voting machines have played us absolutely true, and we have had no reason to be dissatisfied with them. We have had our election returns, after the close of the polls, more quickly than any other large community, and there has been less trouble in the way of questions about the accuracy of the results than one would believe possible. Certainly, as compared with the condition of things which existed before, when we voted on paper ballots, either in the early stage when parties and individuals got up their own ballots, or in the late stage when the state furnished official ballots, our voting machines have been an enormous improvement in celerity, in certainty of work and in the removal of a large class of questions which are involved in th general subject of corrupt practices at elections. Tampering with board of elections, holding back of returns, falsifying returns to meet the necessities or supposed necessities, of candidates for majorities larger or smaller as the case may be, all those things have been entirely done away with by the use of these ballot machines.

It is important to speak of this at this time because any failure of voting machine attains great publicity, and it has already been broadcast through the country that in the recent election last week two of our machines obviously did fail. That subject is being investigated t0day before the board of canvassers, the board of supervisors of th county of Erie. The two machines are over at the City Hall and the fault is going to be found out, whatever it is. One or two candidate received several hundred votes less than they were entitled to, while th rest got the proper number,—there was some fault in the mechanism. [505]

Up to this moment the party whose candidates were injured by that false result does not suspect any intentional wrong-doing. It simply seem to be a breakdown of those two machines. Very peculiarly two machine performed the same tricks, and against the same candidates, bu it does not seem to be possible that they could have been intentionall fixed in such a way as to do that thing. Notwithstanding that, up to the present time, I want to say on behalf of the people of Buffalo that we believe in the voting machine, and we know that the voting machine has taken the place of human agencies for recording and counting votes, in a way that has done a great deal for purity in our elections for many years.

But I want to go further, and point out one or two other things the may accomplish. It has always been remarkable to us in Buffalo that our friends in New York City have never adopted voting machines as means of curing some of the evils they complain of; and the objection always made to them have been these : first, the heavy expense involved, owing to the fact that they are patented machines. The original cost I believe, was some five or six hundred dollars each. That may possibly be reduced now, but being a patented machine, probably not very much reduced. Buffalo uses 115, and has to have more in store. New York City would use twelve or fifteen hundred, or even more. The initial cost is great, but after that they reduce the annual expense of the elections very largely.

The second objection is to the absence of secrecy, because with th machine the voting is done by pulling a lever, and that does make a perceptible noise. The person who goes in and votes a straight party ticket makes one click only. Of course, if there are constitutional amendment they make one or two or three more sounds, if he votes for them. Bu usually a paid voter would be persuaded not to vote for these, but t vote one click, thereby recording a straight party vote for the candidate and no more. If another lever is moved it can be heard. That does, to a slight degree, remove the secrecy of voting, although it is all done behind curtains where it cannot be seen.

As to the expense, the great cost of this machine comes from its patentable quality. It is due to the complication of the mechanism, which records the votes of a great many candidates by pulling one general lever, and also individual votes by pulling individual levers. You can pull a party column lever and vote for them all. You can move back, if you are voting the Republican ticket, the pointer of a Republican candidate and vote for a Democratic candidate in a different column on the same line, and also sometimes on a different line. Those are the complication which are covered by patents, and which make the machine expensive, and also make it dangerous, liable to break down because of its complexity. Now, with a simple machine, with the names of the candidates [506] arranged alphabetically, or at least not in party columns, and a lever opposite each one, by pulling that lever it records on a single dial and there is no other means of moving that dial. I am prepared to say that such a machine would not be patentable, because this mechanism has long been used all over the world. With the elimination of patents will disappear the great expense of the machine, and the chances of breakdown will disappear because of the simplicity of the mechanism.

As to the question of secrecy, such a machine will click for every man you vote for, and nobody is going to stop to count whether it click five or seven or nine or eleven times, when so many men are on the ticket. You may vote for one man and move the pointer back and vote for another, for these machines do not record until you come out. You can change a much as you like while you are in the voting space. The recording is done when you throw back the curtain. The entire objection on the ground of secrecy would be removed if we had this form of ballot. Those are considerations which make me think that the urging of the ballot machines will be an auxiliary to help in the general movement for ballot reform, because it is so obvious that a machine constructed on those simple lines will be safe, economical, entirely secret and as expeditious as lightning in recording the vote. The vote is recorded the instant the voting is concluded (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 505-507).

Chautauqua County, NY

"Every town rejected them"

Mr. McKinstry — ... We had nine of the Myers ballot machines on trial last spring in Chautauqua county, and every town rejected them. I could give you a very interesting history of our experience with ballot machines, but refrain from using the time of the Convention. I consider the liability of such machines to get out of order as fatal to their usefulness (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 98).

Ithaca, NY (1898)

'The machines retain all the virtues and exclude all the vices of the old methods of balloting.'

In New York, voting machine can be employed until has been fully inspected, carefully studied and unqualifiedly approved, by the Voting Machine Commission ; from whom a report must be secured, and filed in the office the Secretary of State, to the effect that machine is capable of registering six hundred voters in the election hours, accurately and efficiently, can be safely employed that purpose, and that the Legislature the State is justified in legalizing its use. Under these provisions of law, the cities Buffalo, Rochester. Utica, Ithaca and other smaller places, have now used the machines in regular elections. In one or two places, older forms of machine, introduced before the commission for their inspection and endorsement was formed, have not proved satisfactory ; but the later experiments have been entirely so, and Buffalo has 108, Rochester 73, and other places lesser numbers, all of which are reported have proved a marvellous success. One of these machines costs $500, registers a maximum, under the law—there is limit in construction—600 voters, at a rate of 5 to 15 seconds each voter, saves $16 a year in cost of operating a precinct, $40 to $50 in election printing, and, by enabling a reduction to be made in the number election precincts, saves about $200 on each one abolished. In Ithaca, the reduction, the law is followed precisely, will be no less than two nor more than four district out of ten ; saving the city from twenty forty per cent, net on the investment.

The following were the conclusions reported I the Fina.uce Committee to the City Counc and the people of Ithaca : "Summarizing our conclusions your Finance Committee would respectfully submit that

(1) The voting machine is a simple, reliabl durable anil convenient apparatus for its purpose.
(2)i The machine compels the deposit of a perfect and accurate ballot, of the form chosen hy the voter.
(3) It restricts the voter absolutely to the limits of the law and permits him freedom as absolute in voting within that limit.
(4) Blank and defective ballots, the usual fault of ordinary methods of voting, are entirely done away with and no man loses his vote through defect of the system, or fault of his own, if he votes at all. The disfranchised voter becomes unknown. "
(5) Fraudulent voting is impossible as well as errors in voting.
(6)The vote cast is registered, vote by vote, with absolute accuracy and certainty.
(7) The result can be declared immediately upon the close of the polls, having been already completely counted.
(8) The cost of the system is so much lees than that of the old method that the machines usually pay for themselves in from three to seven years.

The whole case may be summarized in a sentence: 'The machines retain all the virtues and exclude all the vices of the old methods of balloting' (Thurston 1898: 918-919).

Rochester, NY

"A great many people in Rochester think that they have been tampered with."

MR. HOSIER: We have had voting machines in Rochester. think we were one of the first, if not the first, to adopt th ballot machines. The original machine, I think Voting Machines was invented by a Rochester man. There ha in Rochester been a suggestion in Rochester that they should b abandoned, a very pronounced suggestion. There ha been difficulty; there is a great deal of dissatisfaction with them. O the other hand, there is a good deal of approval. We stand between th two views that have been expressed here to-day. Some years ago I was the plaintiff in an action in relation to an election in which one or two machines, one in particular, was clearly wrong. It registered 25% of the votes blank on the whole ticket voted for, which on the face of i is an absurdity. We tried to find out what was the matter with that machine, and we haven't found out yet, and we never will, [Applause] because the laws that are framed by the legislature with reference to voting are framed for partisan purposes. One of the objections to voting machines is that they may be tampered with, and a great many people in Rochester think that they have been tampered with, and that the law which governs elections is so framed that if they are tampered with the discovery of it can never be made. So that when we consider the question of ballot machines we must also consider the question of the electio law, and before any community determines to adopt a voting machin process of voting, it should look very carefully into the whole subjec because there are unquestionably two sides to it (Steele and Fitch 1900).

Warsaw, NY

"It is simple; it is secret; it is effective."

Mr. Augustus Frank — Mr. Chairman, it occurs to me that it may be of interest to the members of this Convention to hear something in relation to the workings of the machine which this proposed amendment will give to the electors of the State. For two years past it has been in use in the town of Warsaw, in which I reside, and with complete success. I do not think there is a single voter there who is in any way opposed to its continued use. It is simple; it is secret; it is effective. It does its work thoroughly, and when the polls close the result of the vote as to each candidate voted for is immediately announced (Steele and Fitch 1900: I, 926).

Arguments in favor of voting machines -- a century ago

1894

"There is far less danger of [sabotage] than there is that somebody will inject 500 or 1,000 false ballots into the ballot-box."

Mr. Barhite — ... This is an age of improvement and of progress. The inventive genius of man, dissatisfied with the old way of voting, has begun to devise ways and means by which frauds and incorrect method of voting can be done away with. One of the gentlemen who had the floor a few moments ago referred to the fact that if a gill of certain liquid substance should enter the mechanism of the machine under discussion, it would be destroyed. I say to him, and I say to the members of this Convention, that there is far less danger of anything of that kind than there is that somebody will inject 500 or 1,000 false ballots into the ballot-box. The advantage of anything of that kind over the ballot-box is that even, if any person is disposed to commit fraud and thwart the will of the people, it must be done before the voting begins, and there is no reason why this machine cannot be tested before the polls are open, and, if the machine is then found to be out of order or does not work properly it can be thrown away, while the difficulty in voting by ballot is that the fraud is perpetrated during the hours in which the voting actually takes place (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 97-98).

"Use of a machine to beat a machine"

Mr. Dickey — ... It has been well said by a gentleman of this Convention in private conversation that it permits the use of a machine to beat a machine (Steele and Fitch 1900: I, 927).

Voting machine patent infringement

City Commission, Grand Rapids (Mich.). City. Proceedings of the City Commission. S.n, 1906, p. 289.

Rochester, N. T., June US, 1905

To the Honorable the Common Council of the City of Grand Rapids, Gran Rapids, Michigan.

Gentlemen—The U. S. Standard Votin Machine Company of Rochester New York, hereby offers to sell to you city thirty-nine (39) or more U. S Standard Voting Machines, each o which will provide for seven politica parties, thirty candidates to eac party, and one row of thirty device for voting for persons not nominated1 and one row of "Yea" and "No" pointer of sufficient capacity for voting o fifteen constitutional amendments o other questions, and a device or device for voting for non-partisan candidates. Each party row of voting Je vices on said machine will be furnishe with a separate straight party ticke lever, by the operation of which complete party vote can be cast. Sai straight party ticket levers being s arranged as to be rendered operativ or inoperative as the Michigan Votin Machine law may at any time require at the. net price of five hundred dollars $500.00) for each machine f. o. b. car at factory, Jamestown, New York

We will agree to ship the same o or before the first day of January 1906, provided always there is no i?e lay caused by strikes, fires, or othe causes over which we have no control and provided1 the order is given on o before the first day of August, 1905.

We will guarantee that said machine shall be constructed so tha will comply with the requirement of the laws of the State o Michigan relating to voting machines that they will do the wor for which they are constructed in a efficient and correct manner: that the will secure a secret vote and an accurat count wh«n operated accordin to law

We will guarantee to make good h repair or replacement any imperfection or defects in material or workmanshi in said: machines, provide they are properly cared for. Thi guarantee, however, shall not be understoo to cover the cost of repairin said machines when damaged b the elements, fire, accident or through the carelessness of others than the agents of this company. We will furnish with each machine, without extra charge, a small working model, which Is a duplicate of a portion of the face of the machine, to facilitate the instruction of voters.

We will agree to indemnify your city from all damages and costs in any action or actions that may be prosecuted successfully against It for the Infringement of any letters patent by the use of said machines.

We will agree to send a representative ¡it our expense, before the first election at which the machines are to be used, to instruct the person or persons who will have charge of th« machines in the use and care of same, so that they can properly Instruct the election officers.

We will accept in payment for said machines the sum of four thousand five hundred dollars ($4,500) on July 1st. 1906: the further sum of five thousand dollars ($5.000) on July 1st, 1907; the further sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) on July 1st, 1908, and the further sum of five thousand dollars ($5.000) on July 1st, 1909. Said amounts to become due and payable at the office of the City Treasurer of your city in New York or Chicago exchange, in the amounts and at the times above named, together with five per cent, annual interest thereon, Interest payable semi-annually and to date from the delivery of said machines, or in lieu thereof, we will accept the bonds of your city, payable In like amounts and at the times above-specified, the same bearing Interest at four per cent.

We will agree that if the city at any time within one year desires to exchange the above named machines for machines of a larger size, the company will allow the full purchase price of five hundred dollars ($500) for eacn machine that is returned In good condition and will furnish larger machines at an Increase price of one hundred dollars ($100) for each ten additional candidates. Namely, seven party machine of forty candidates to each party, $600.00: seven party machines of fifty candidates to each party, $700.00; seven party machines of sixty candidates to each party, $800.00; the city to pay all costs of transportation.

We will furnish a bond within thirty days of the completion of a contract in the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) to be of force for a period of three years from the date of said contract, executed by ourselves as principal and by some incorporated company duly authorized to guarantee the performance of contract and to do business in the State of Michigan surety, guaranteeing the faithful performanc of our contract

Respectfully submitted. U. S STANDARD VOTING MACHIN GO Charlea F. Long. Treasurer.

Tammany gets the Massachusetts ballot

A message from the Governor by the hand of his secretary was
received and road, in the words following:
STATE OF NEW YORK — EXECUTIVE CHAMBER,
ALBANY, N. Y., December 8, 1913.
To the Legislature :

THE MASSACHUSETTS BALLOT I am satisfied that the enlighteneD public opinion of this day demands a change in ouR election laws that will substitute, in the place of the ballot now we now use, the Massachusetts form of ballot, throwing about the change method of voting all necessary safeguards to make easy, effective and sure the free exercise by every citizen of the State entitle to vote of the right of the elective franchise. The public opinion which demands this change is the development of years of study and experience upon this subject. The selection of elective public officials should reflect the deliberate intention of the voters. I our day, we have come to recognize that it is unfair and unwise t impose upon our electors a method of voting that is designed t limit or make difficult the free expression of individual choice an judgment. The party column in our present ballot promotes part voting and hampers individual choice and judgment. The Massachusetts form of ballot, safeguarded as I have suggested, will no only enable, but will require the voter to deliberately express hi sovereign will with respect to every office and upon every candidate for office. Such is the duty of good citizenship as the public sentiment of to-day defines it. Far be it from me to minimize the importance of parties in this great country of ours. I have n misgivings as to the great public good that results from part loyalty and party earnestness in the promotion of wise principle and policies of government. But party membership should recognize and I am sure, in large measure does recognize that, aside from the organized parties, there is a large and controlling citizenship that refuses to ally itself with any party, and demands, a is its right, the privilege of individual choice, judgment and selection This great body of our citizenship has as much right a party membership to the equal protection of the law in its exercise of the elective franchise. That it has not that equal protection under the existing method of voting is plain, and, in the fact, lies a great public injustice. This should be remedied Parties and party membership will not suffer from laws that assure equality to the entire electorate. Parties and party membership have no right to preference in the convenience, safety an efficiency of voting Therefore, no injustice to parties or to party members is involve in this change, for parties will endure, and party member will readily accommodate themselves to any method o voting. Equality will he accomplished by this change and a injustice, which has doubtless resulted in much or partial disenfranchisement of a large body of our electorate, will be overcome In this great State, where manhood suffrage is our proud conception of the right of citizens to participate in our free government a method of voting which inspires equality of right to ever elector is just and fair and honorable and squares exactly wit our American spirit of fair play.

Community oversight of vote counting

Steele, William H., and Charles Elliott Fitch. Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York. The Argus Company, 1900.

Mr. Hamlin — Mr. Chairman, in regard to this voting matter, I believe that an intelligent vote should be cast and counted in an intelligent manner, so that every man can see how it is received and recorded and counted in the end. Now, the object of this amendment is, of course, to cover this Myers machine. However, it is broader than that. The objection to all these machines is, as I have before stated when this amendment was under consideration. Beyond that they are all patented machines. They are and will be practically monopolies, and the question is whether this Convention wishes to put into this Constitution something that will be practically for the benefit of machines of that character. And then, these machines must work with unerring precision. If they [85] ever fail, they will be useless. Now, machines will work at ordinary times and be successful machines, but I wish to say, with regard to this particular machine, that in my own county, in two towns, within a radius of two miles from where I reside, it has failed twice. In one year it defeated a candidate for assessor, and in the other case the doors had to be opened, so that it was known how many voters had voted up to the time the machine failed to record. Now, I am opposed to any plan by which any machine in the future shall be used. If the time shall ever come when there is some device that has been demonstrated after repeated experiments to be successful, it will be ample time for the people of this State to put it in their Constitution.

Mr. Holls — I regret exceedingly to differ from my friend from Ontario (Mr. Hamlin), and my friend from Fulton (Mr. Spencer), but it seems to me that just the reverse is true, with regard to the proper nature of the act which should apply to the counting of ballots, from what they have said. My friend, Mr. Spencer, says that he wants the ballots counted by a human being — by one having intelligence. My answer to that is, that while the voting should be as intelligent as possible, the process of counting is a purely mechanical process. There have been any number of machines invented, calculating, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, very much better than the human brain can do them; and there is no reflection at all upon the fact that the human mind is superseded by a machine for that purpose. It seems to me that what we should strive for is to get rid of every possible temptation or chance for fraud, in connection with elections. Now, I do not know that a machine can be invented, or has been invented, which applies the mechanical principles of the adding machine, or of Babbage's calculating machine, or of others that are well known, to the method of voting. If such a machine could be devised, there would then be no chance for destroying the ballots, no chance for a miscount, either by intention or by negligence; and one great element of uncertainty and fraud in elections would be entirely eliminated. Now, if a machine did nothing else than that, it would be wise for this Convention not to make it impossible to use it. I wish to call the attention of members of the committee to the fact that this amendment is purely permissive; that to defeat it is equivalent to saying that in the next twenty years no advance shall be made in the invention of a machine wlifch may make voting more comfortable and more certain, so far as the count is concerned. That, in my opinion, would be just as absurd as it would have been, if Fulton had been prevented by constitutional prohibition or lawelections. I sincerely hope that these amendments will prevail. (87)

Anonymous. “Recent Cases.” Harvard Law Review (1907): 324-337.

ELECTIONS — CONSTITUTIONALITY OF VOTING MACHINES. — A state statut authorized the adoption of a voting machine that should secure secrec and be generally efficient. The state constitution provided that election should be by ballot. Held, that voting by the machine is voting by ballo within the meaning of the constitution. Elwell v. Comstock, 109 N. W. Rep 698 (Minn ) Voting machines not only do away with separate paper ballots, but in som cases substitute mechanical accuracy both for the sensible knowledge of th voter that he has voted as he wished and for the responsibility of officials fo the count. Therefore, under the Massachusetts Constitution which provide for a written vote to be counted by officials, some judges thought that th machine's action ought to be visible to the voters and officials. On the othe hand, a written vote was denned by others as a change in a material objec connected with the written name of a candidate, if such change in commo understanding expressed a vote. See Opinion of the Justices, 178 Mass. 605. [329]

Steele, William H., and Charles Elliott Fitch. Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York. The Argus Company, 1900.

Mr. Spencer — Mr. Chairman, I am not opposed to any reasonable
measure of ballot reform, but, in my judgment, this Convention
will make a great blunder, if it makes this important change in the
provisions of the Constitution upon the single idea of permitting
a machine to be used in elections. My objection to the use of
machines in elections is based upon a single proposition, and that
is that I do not want any machine between the human mind that
counts my ballot and the result. I do not want, if there be any
fraud or wrong, or mistake, to have that fraud, or wrong, or mistake
charged upon any machine as an excuse. I want the human
mind to act in regard to this matter, and anything that comes in
between the human mind, in its action, in its counting, in its registry,
is, in my judgment, a mistake. I think, sir, that in this habit
of registering and counting votes, we should hold men responsible
and should not put anything between a man, as an officer, and the
result of the election.

Voting machines in New York -- a chronology

1921

West, Victor J. “1921 Legislation Respecting Elections.” American Political Science Review 16 (1922): 460-465.

New York make the use of voting machines obligatory in cities of the first class (Laws 1921, ch. 391, p. 1228). It is provided that machines must have bee installed in twelve per cent of the polling places in the cities affecte in time for the general election of 1921, in thirty-five per cent of th polling places by 1922, and by 1923 they must be in use in all pollin places. If the proper local authorities fail to make provision for th use of voting machines, the secretary of state may take the necessary action (462)

Ballot design as political intervention

Allen, Philip Loring. “Ballot Laws and Their Workings.” Political Science Quarterly 21, no. 1 (March 1906): 38-58.

It was perhaps natural, however, in view of the particular evils which this reform [the Australian ballot] was intended to combat, that its advocates should have concentrated their attention almost wholly on the prevention of trickery in the preparation of ballots and the protection of the voter in the free exercise of the franchise. While the fight was on to secure these essentials, all other aspects of the question were regarded as of secondary importance. Thus, when it was once assured that the ballot should be printed by the public authorities, that the voter should have an opportunity to mark it in private without anyone else knowing how he voted, that it should be duly checked and correctly counted once and only once in the presence of representatives of all parties, it did not so much matter in what particular fashion the ballot was printed nor how the names on it were arranged.... It is the purpose of this paper to show not only that the form of the ballot has a very powerful influence on the results of elections, both as regards the freedom of the voter in making his choice and the accuracy with which he records it, but also to bring out, so far as possible, the precise effects produced by each variety of form (38) The especial point to be considered first is the relative ease with which under different ballot laws a split ticket and a straight ticket may be voted. So far as this matter is concerned, the mere shape and mechanical arrangement of the ballot is by no means decisive. As will appear later, two states may have official ballots practically identical, so far as the printer's work is concerned, and yet, by reason of the statutes prescribing the method of marking, one of these may offer the greatest encouragement to the independent voter while the other puts the heaviest penalty on all but the straight party man (40) At one extreme are the states in which the independent voter in the hypothetical case is put to twenty times as much mechanical labor in voting as the hide-bound partisan, and at the other extreme, those in which the two are put to exactly the same amount of trouble in voting (43). In the states where the marking of each individual candidate is compulsory, the voters-whichever column be taken as the basis of comparison-have exercised more than twice as much discrimination among candidates as in any other group, and from four to ten times as much as in the lowest group of each column (47). If it is twenty times as much trouble to vote a split as a straight ticket, few persons are going to choose the former, whether the unit is a pencil mark or the movement of a celluloid button. The fear of making a mistake that will invalidate entirely is, it is true, removed, and this should give the voter a greater sense of freedom, but the argument of least resistance applies nevertheless. It is thus very important that a locality which proposes to install voting machines should secure a kind that will conform to the sort of ballot found to be adapted to the needs of that place. A state accustomed to a ballot which requires the marking of every name is simply undoing its good work if it installs voting machines which have a straight party lever or knob. It is virtually letting the designer of the machine nullify the provisions of the election law (58)

Election fraud and election outcomes -- 1888

Fredman, L. E. The Australian Ballot: The Story of an American Reform. Michigan State University Press, 1968.

As the ballot was printed and distributed by the party boss, there was no safe guarantee that he would not "knife" or trade off a candidate in return for the opposition suppporting another part of the ticket. It was generally believed that in New York the upstate Republicans and Tammany Hall, the Democratic party machine in the city, had some such arrangement.... Although American electors frequently crossed party lines, the verypossibilityi of knifing led to endless suspsicions. A noted instance occurred during the presidential elections of 1888. The incumbent, Grover Cleveland of upsate New York, was running against the Republican Benjamin Harrison. In his home state, Governer David B. Hill was rapidly emerging as an accomplished Democratic state boss with national aspirations. In the national canvas, Cleveland defeated Harrison by a small plurality, but lost in New York and accordingly lost in the electoral college -- the reverse of his hectic fight with James G. Blaine in 1884 when he had narrowly taken New York. Harrison's plurality in the state 12,787; but Hill, also running for re-election, gained a plurality of 17,740 over the Republican candidate for governor. In the city he ran about eleven thousand votes ahead of Cleveland's plurality. In addition, Tammany candidates won the city offices and fifteen of the city's twenty-four assembly districts. Because of the discrepancy, the nonpartisan reformers and leaders of the rival County Democracy charged Hill and Tammany with betraying the national ticket. "A better man was never sacrificed to a meaner one," thundered the New York times (28-29)

New Jersey buys voting machines -- and then gets rid of them

Whitten, Robert H. “Political and Municipal Legislation in 1903.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 23 (March 1904): 128-145.

Governor Murphy, of New Jersey, urges the State to purchase voting machines for the counties. He estimates that this will cost half a million dollars, but asks, "How can the money of the State be so well used as in providing a means by which the corruption of the ballot is made impossible." The legislature made a beginning by authorizing the State Board of Voting-Machine Commissioners to purkhase machines with the consent of the governor, to define their location and use... and appropriating $50,000 for this purpose. (334)

McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham, and Albert Bushnell Hart. Cyclopedia of American Government. D. Appleton and company, 1914.

In New Jersey cities, voting machines were extensively used for several years, but in 1911 this use was stopped by a law supported mainly, it is alleged, by men who were too ignorant or careless to vote without assistance in preparing their ballots and by those who wished either to sell or buy votes. (633)

GEORGE J. McEWAN. “The Jersey Election Laws.” New York Times (1857-Current file), December 8, 1906.

In all the discussion that has been in the newspapers since the last election concerning the defects of the New Jersey election laws as to voting machines, ballots, &c., there are one or two points which appear to have been overlooked... The first ... is the provision that the Secretary of State may designate certain sections of the State where voting machines must be used.... this provision of the law has been used strictly for political purposes...

Sackett, William Edgar. Modern Battles of Trenton. J.L. Murphy, Printer, 1914.

With the same selfish avidity with which they fell upon Governo Murphy's primary reform suggestions, the bosse pounced upon his recommendation of the voting machine i his annual message to the Legislature of 1903. It may b assumed that the election methods of the regnant powers wer no better or cleaner than their primary methods had been Elections had been marked by all kinds of frauds. They wer probably no worse in New Jersey than in other States, but Ne Jersey aims to be an exemplar for the good for other Commonwealth to look up to, and, besides, for their own sakes her people were eager to purify her election methods. An [162] active lobby had long been spreading among them the propaganda that their votes could be most accurately and most honestl registered, and tallied beyond the possibility of distortio by knavish election officials, if the voting machine was used The lobby had argued the case for the voting machine trus with such skill and assiduity that many of the shrewdest statesme in the land had been convinced.

In a message to one of the three Legislatures of his ter Governor Werts had advised the purchase of the machines fo use at the polling places, and so given the Trust an introductio to the Jersey public that it studiously cultivated. I did not deem it prudent, however, to be precipitate in projectin its schemes, and it was not till 1902 that its aims took legislativ shape. Fagan and Record had begun to stir up tumult in Republican circles, and the spread of their anti-monopol and anti-boss propaganda had given the local chieftains som tremors of dismay. The petty leaders were ready to adopt an device that would help disfranchise these discordant elements and the voting machine suggestion came to them as somethin that might be utilized to that end.
They had already given to the State a long string of electio devices that, under cover of "reform," were intended only fo the confusion of the voters. The Australian ballot system, wit its yard-long ballot and its secret chamber in the polling plac for the seclusion of the voter, was one of their disfranchisin schemes, so new and so complicated in its operations that th bewildered voter would slink from the polls rather than face it intricacies. They had to establish schools all over the State fo instruction as to its workings. These were ostensibly for th voters who, they knew, would never attend, but really for th enlightenment of their heelers and camp followers who, the also knew, would be sure to attend. By the time the genera public had mastered the details of that system, the bosses woul discard it, and throw them into another hopeless confusion wit another election chart.


The people were becoming too familiar with the Australia device when the voting machine came into view as the thin needed for a new disfranchiser—and a better one. It was s difficult to understand that the timid would not venture to operat it. Even the intelligent elector who had the intrepidity to [163] face it would be confused in the use of its iron levers. A noted preacher who dared it came away from it perspiring, to denounce it as a wicked mockery. It was particularly obdurate in the hands of the man who wanted to split his ticket or vote an independent one, and every variation from the regular was heralded to the bosses with a tell-tale click that could be heard by all in the polling place.

Even after the voter had pulled the prescribed lever here and the prescribed lever there, he could not see, through that coat of mail, the credit for his vote or its tallying. In the ballot-
box system there was danger of his ballot being abstracted after he had seen it fall into the receptacle or negatived by fraud in the count. But this little iron monster of bolts and bars,
screws, springs and wheels, gave no sign that the vote had even been received or that it was tallied at all. And the doubting Thomas was obliged to content himself with the hope that
it was all right, even if he was pretty well satisfied that it was all wrong. Some of the machines, put upon the State in the sequel, tallied more votes than there were names on the registry
lists. The explanation that they were out of order only served to start inquiry as to whether any of them were in order to do the work for which they were employed.

And there were classes of voters to whom the machine would be more than mere terrors for the timid, and more tha hopeless puzzles for the ignorant. To the foreign element which as a rule has little sympathy with Republican candidates this grim figure of the polling place, so cold, so hard so unsympathetic, so rigid, unyielding and voiceless, in its coa of armor, with levers that swung with the swish of a sword and clicked like gunlocks when they checked up a vote, woul be a recrudescence of the iron-heeled spirit of despotism the had fled to these shores to escape, and they would be likely t shrink from a contact that was so vivid a reminder of old-lan tortures Altogether the bosses agreed that the voting machine wa just the thing they needed "in their business," and what Mr Bryan happily describes as the "subsidized patriotism" of the State set up a chorus for the purification of the elections—an for the voting machine as the purifier. The Trust was fortunat in securing the cooperation of Senator Wakelee of [164] Bergen county in its effort to set up this thing of iron ove the people. Mr. Wakelee is a gentleman with a face of Yankee sharpness and an air of Yankee briskness—quickwitted plausible and ready-tongued. He is an uncompromisin partisan, and, in his service in the Senate, had impresse himself upon his fellow legislators as a "likely fellow." Hi specialty, before he became interested in the voting machin reform, had been the scattering all over Bergen county o little borough governments wherever there was chance of mor Republican officials; and Bergen Republicans were so gratefu to him for creating new places for them that they were unan; mous in the view that he should be Mr. Murphy's successo in the Governorship.

Both because of his energy and smartness and his influence Mr. Wakelee was a good man to have behind the voting machin movement, and when he entered upon it he labored fo it with the same sleepless attention he had given to his borough building operations. He began his campaign for it wit a bill through which the Trust was to "feel its way" to th public favor. It was not yet ready to come forward with proposition that the state bargain with it. It merely sought through Wakelee's bill, authority for the use of voting machines instead of the ballot which had been so long glorified as the "Palladium of American Liberty," in the local polling function of designating the localities to which they were t be sent. And the Wakelee bill created
a "State Voting Machine Commission" with power to supply
machines in the districts that applied for them. The Governor
named Francis Phillips, of Chatham; Seward Davis, of
Upper Montclair, and Joseph A. Brohel, of River Edge, to
serve on the commission.

The election districts did not rush the commission with orders. Several of them let it be known, however, that they would like the machine if the State would buy it for them; and at the opening of the Legislature of 1903 Governor Murphy, in his annual message, suggested that it might be
advisable for the State to set up, say, about forty of them, in as many election districts, to see how they worked. Wakelee responded to the suggestion with an act appropriating $40,000
for the purchase of 81 machines, and committing to the tender mercies of Secretary of State Dickinson the very important [165] function of designating the localities to which they were to
be sent. The Senator succeeded in making a party measure of the act, and it went through both houses with a solid Republican vote in its favor.

The State House was rife with rumors when it becam known that the commission had expended the $40,000 for 8 machines without inviting competition. The rumors were s prevalent and compromising that Governor Murphy felt calle upon, in his annual message to the Legislature of 1904, to mak explanation for the omission. Three concerns, he said, ha offered machines. But it was learned that the factories of tw were not equipped to furnish the supply, and the commissio had no recourse save to award the contract to the third. Th Governor, in his anxiety to improve election methods, wa betrayed into giving public assurances that the 81 machine had given such eminent satisfaction as to justify the purchas of enough more to supply all of the 1600 voting booths i the State. More than $500,000 of expenditures would hav resulted from the acceptance of the suggestion; and it wa said the State could not spare the money. Wakelee had a bil authorizing the outlay, but it was supposed to have been hel in committee till, long after the adjournment of the Legislature the Evening News of Newark made editorial announcemen that it had somehow slipped through, unobserved, i modified form. It was found on file in Secretary of Stat Dickinson's office, and, in authorizing the expenditure of a additional $100,000, enabled Dickinson to impose it upo about 200 more of the voting districts The selection of Dickinson as the distributor of the machine was a recognition of his skill as a practical politician He had been schooled in the game from wardheeler up to national delegate. He had the reputation of being the bes Eractical politician in the State—the most cool, the most calcu- iting, the most relentless, the best informed. He knew al the localities and all their people, and their relations to partie and bosses. He could pick out the Republican district where independent leanings called for the suppressing forc of the voting machine, and the Democratic polling place where the struggle of the prevailing ignorance with the intricacie of the machine would reduce the Democratic poll. [166]

The reaction came when the uses to which the machine wa being put began to dawn on the public conscience. The independen voters, growing in number, made their cry agains being crushed under it heard. The half disfranchised Democrati districts joined in the clamor. Citizens who had trie to vote with it, but couldn't; others who did not know whethe they had succeeded in voting with it or not, and the foreig element, who resented it as a reminder of the iron rule the had thrown off when they came here, leaped into the publi places to denounce it and revolt against its use longer. Bu still the purchases went on—190 more in 1905 and 91 i 1906, making a total of 360, for which the State paid mor than $180,000 into the hands of the Trust. The popula clamor grew and grew. The press gave voice to it. The Sta of Newark was particularly energetic in a crusade that becam nearly unanimous for the repeal of the acts that ha made the conscienceless purchases possible. The bosses beaten back by the tumult, modified the law so as to make th use of the machine optional with the districts. Special vote in 215 of the districts in 1908 resulted in its repudiation b 211 of them. Thirty-five elections in 1909 and 71 in 191 expelled the ugly device from all save one each in East Orange River Edge, Asbury Park and Camden, and six in Paterson This overwhelming manifestation of popular indignation le to the repeal of the act by the Wilson Legislature of 1911 The discredited things came piling back to the State House where the State House Commission has authority to sell the for what it can get for them. And Assistant Secretary of State Job H. Lippincott told the commission that the Stat will do well if she gets as much as $10 a piece for them—i she gets back $3,600 of the $180,000 she was beguiled int spending for them. He was just the man to send the party's new snuffer where it could do the most good, and he did not scruple to do it.

League, National Municipal. Proceedings of the National Conference for Good City Government and Annual. The Municipal League, 1910.

MR. PLEYDELL: I want to say a few words on the other side of thi question. I live and vote in the State of New Jersey where we have bee afflicted with this machine. They cost the state over a million dollars They were not put in all of the districts. Whereve TJew Jersey's they were put in a district there was such complain Experience that the commissioner who had charge of them woul shift them off on another district until nobody woul take them. I was in one of those districts that got a machine on th last shuffle and had to keep it. The protest was so strong that the legislatur passed a referendum law by which the people of a voting distric could have a special election as to getting rid of the machine. My tow held a special election quickly. It was so nearly unanimous that ver few people bothered to vote. It is a small district with about a thousan voters, and some 260 of us went around to vote the machine out. Abou five or six people voted to keep them. Every municipality in which vote was taken voted them out. The machines are cumbersome, they ar complex, they are a help to the party machine. The voting machine use is so complex that a leading professor of engineering at Princeton confesse after he came out that he did not know how he had voted, and have been informed that the governor of the state who signed the bil to put the machines in has stated that he didn't know how he voted and I know that several judges of our courts stated that after they had come out of the booth that they didn't know for whom they had voted While it is true that some of these difficulties can be overcome if yo do not have the party column, and would be lessened somewhat if yo had a short ballot, nevertheless there are other difficulties that woul arise. You can vote a party ticket very quickly with the machine, bu when you have only one machine in a voting district and a lot of peopl to vote there is an unconscious pressure on every man to vote quickly If he doesn't, he gets yelled at, and if he stays too long they go in an yank him out, and you have not the opportunities you have with the presen voting booths. These are important things. If we want the peopl to discriminate when they vote, we have got to give them every facilit to discriminate, instead of making it hard for them. It is bad enoug to have a blanket ballot, but at least a man, if he spoils one, can com out and get another, and after he has marked it he has some idea fo whom he is voting

Defining the term "voting machine"

What is a voting machine? If you check dictionaries and encyclopedias, you'll be told that it's a mechanical, electro-mechanical, or electronic device designed to record and count votes. That this definition is incomplete is suggested by the fact that most voting machines (excluding optical scan systems) incorporate mechanisms to present a ballot to the user -- and even optical scan machines place significant limitations on the nature and form of ballots usable with them.

The 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica is far closer to the mark: "machines for registering and counting the ballots. These machines are in fact mechanical Australian ballots" (emphasis mine). The Australian ballot, adopted widely in the U.S. in the late 1880s and early 1890s, is a secret ballot, so many voting machines include structural features (such as curtains or side panels) that are designed to prevent others, including election officials, from observing or reconstructing their choices.

• Voting machines were also (and more commonly) called ballot machines: "The machine is, after all, nothing but a blanket ballot in which a lever, button or key takes the place of the cross-mark or other stamp" (Allen 1906: 58).
  

But what's most fundamentally missing from the standard definition is that voting machines are, above all else, technological interventions that are designed, in the first instance, to control the behavior of human beings in polling places. Consider the following, written in 1899:

[T]he machine is so constructed that each voter shall... be able to vote, within the law, precisely as he may choose, while it is impossible for him to do anything which the law forbids. He has absolute freedom to do right; he cannot possibly do a legal wrong (Thurston 1899: 918).

Consider, too, that first-generation voting machines -- and their modern electronic counterparts -- are designed to record votes directly within their internal mechanisms, without producing a paper ballot. The express intention of this design is, again, control, as the Encyclopedia Britannica (1910 edition) clearly explains:

The necessity for... [voting machines] has been emphasized by election practices in many parts of the United States.... [t]he number of void and blank ballots is seldom less than 5% of the number of voters voting, and and is often as high as 40%. This lost vote is often greater than the majority of the successful candidate. In close elections there is an endless dispute as to whether the disputed ballots do or do not comply with the law. The election contest and recount expenses frequently exceed the cost of holding the election, and the title of the candidates to the office is frequently held in abeyance by a protracted contest until after the term of office has expired.... The ballots can and have frequently been altered or miscounted by unscrupulous election officers, and the detection of the fraud is frequently difficult and always expensive.

It's impossible to understand the history and politics of voting machines unless it is understood that they are fundamentally about controlling human behavior -- specifically, the behavior of he voter and of election officials -- in election precincts

"The Australian system... can at best only secure secrecy where the voter is bent on having it, but this machine seems to compel secrecy"

In a number of the towns of the State of New York, whe the spring elections are held this year, there will be a ver y novel scene. Each voter will walk into a little room with walls of sheet-iron, will see before him a neat array of bright knobs -- to each of which is attached the name of candidate for office, the whole number including all th names placed in nomination -- will push in the knob for ever name he wishes to vote, and will pass out, having taken according to the experiment in Lockport last year, less tha forty seconds. By the machinery thus employed every vote is securely and secretly recorded, and every voter can cast one vote, and no more, for one candidate for each office. There is no printing of ballots required, there is no chanc of misprinted names, or of miscounting, accidental or in tended, or of changing the returns. The election held in Lockport in the spring of 1892 was very favorably reported on by those who watched it, and the like elections this year will be closely studied. If the machinery does in all place what it did in Lockport, it would seem that the ingenuity of the Yankee inventor had settled the vexed question of ballot reform, and by a voting-machine had destroyed much of th viciousness of machine-voting. The Australian system, for which so much energy and ink have been expended, can a best only secure secrecy where the voter is bent on having it, but this machine seems to compel secrecy, and to make the various phases of electoral crime and abuse physica impossibilities. The saving of money is said to be very great, but the saving in political demoralization and corruption must be, if the machine works uniformly and continuously well, simply incalculable (Harper's Weekly, Feb. 18, 1893).

Opposition to voting machines -- a century ago

1894 (Constitutional convention)

"All kinds of jobbery in legislation"

Mr. Cassidy — I am opposed to this amendment, because I believe that it will be the means of all kinds of jobbery in legislation. Every winter you will find the halls of this Assembly filled wit lobbyists in the interests of voting machines. No sooner will on voting machine be purchased by the voters of this State and pu into operation than some other man will get up another voting machine, perhaps, somewhat improved, and then all the voting machines that were adopted the year before will be thrown int the fence corners and new machines will be adopted, and this thing will go on as different machines are invented from time to time. The men who are interested in selling these machines will come here to the Legislature and give stock to the members to induce them in some other way to vote for the adoption of such other machines. I believe it. I do not think we ought to go to th people this fall with so vital a thing as this. The people are no ready for it. Why do we want to hang a mill-stone around th neck of our work? We will do that if we adopt any such amendment as this. I hope it will not be adopted. I vote no (Steele and Fitch 1900: II, 103).

"If man is imperfect, possibly the machine might be imperfect also."

Mr. Lincoln -- ... I am in favor of striking out this proposition in reference to voting machines. I would rather trust a man than a machine to vote, at any time. I do not believe we ought to abandon our intelligence and individuality in elections by putting the whole result into a machine. A man must make the machine, and if man is imperfect, possibly the machine might be imperfect also. I understand that even this much-boasted Myers ballot machine sometimes fails; that it does not always record the correct result (Steele and Fitch 1900: I, 922-923).

Anonymous. “Election Board Ban on Voting Machines.” New York Times, January 16, 1916.

The Board of Elections, in its annual report, strongly opposes the use of voting machines in the city. As an experiment two machines were used at the last election in the Fifteenth Assembly District, Manhattan. Since then the board has made a study of the subject of voting machines generally with particular reference to the possible adoption of the idea throughout the city. The board's conclusions are based party on mechanical defects noted and also on considerations which arise out of the doubtful legal aspect resulting from their use elsewhere. It is further stated that the machines do not lend themselves to the principle underlying the present ballot law....

Zukerman, David T. The Voting Machine: Report on the History, Use, and Advantages of Mechanical Means for Casting and Counting Balllots. New York: Political Research Bureau of the Republican County Committee, 1925.

Zukerman summarizes the Election Board's opposition to lever voting machines, as outlined in the Board's 1915 Annual Report:

• The efficiency and popularity of the machines has been diminished by the use of the "Massachusetts Ballot", which was claimed to have resulted in abandonment in many instances, so that adoption of the machines would have meant restoration of the old party column ballot.
• They do not lend themselves to all manner of voting, being useless at primaries and requiring paper ballots in addition at presidential elections...
• There is a greater variance than with paper ballots in the votes for the more important and lesser offices.The cost of equipment would be prohibitive...
• They do not save the voter's time, because, although the individual voter may take less time, it takes him twice as long to reach the machines as the booths, of which there are four times as many as there would be machines.
• Finally, the report called attention to "a defect in the law sufficiently serious to discourage the further extension of the use of voting machines while the law remains as it now stands." The reference was to the fact that the law provides for the recanvassing of the vote recorded by a voting machine only when there appears to be a discrepancy in the returns. (6)
  

In 1917, according to Zukerman, the City Club of New York was informed that the Board remained "firm in its opinion that the present voting machines are not sufficiently accurate to justify this board in giving the matter any further consideration at this time" (6). Interestingly, the Board of Elections seems to have discovered the phenomenon of "fall-off" (Roth 1998; Stewart and Ansolabehere 2004), in which some voters -- particularly minority voters -- fail to complete their ballots; lever voting machine have disproportionate fall-off effects and are considered to be discriminatory.

The following remarkable paragraph suggests that Tammany's opposition to voting machines stems from its view that the machines would deprive them of "certain measures of election control," including ballot design; at the same time, Zukerman concedes that proponents may be advocating voting machines in order to "wipe out the handicaps under which they believe themselves to be laboring":

Styles have changed in the field of election fraud, and it is probable that the attitude of politicians has also to some extent changed, and that fraud of any kind is less common. There is still enough to determine the result of a local election, and there are still politicians who would not deliberately advise illegal means but who do not scrutinize too closely the achievements of their lieutenants. They are likely to consider voting machines an obstacle to certain measures for election control, and therefore prefer not to have them introduced. They do not, to be sure, openly assert that to be the reason for their opposition, but instead make a hasty search for more seemly criticisms.... It is improbable that machines are now advocated for purposes of control. Yet, unless put forward carefully in a non-partisan fashion, they may be viewed by the opposition with distrust, no matter how unjustified, as the instruments of some vague partisan advantage. They have the example of New Jersey to support them. At worst the motive of the proponents may be a desire to wipe out the handicaps under which they believe themselves to be laboring. That is at least as worthy as a sincere desire for a clean election; and if they do hope that more votes will thereby get into the records for their candidates, they are hardly to be censured because their motive is not unselfish (74)


John Voorhis, President of the Municipal Board of Elections and Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, was a staunch opponent of voting machines:

Asked his opinion of voting machines, Mr. Voorhis said he did not believe they had been perfected yet. "When we can get a machine which will show to the voter that his vote has been recorded according to his intention, I would be inclined to favor its use," he said. "Unless we can get a machine which will do this and not compel him to take the recording of his vote on faith, I am opposed to the machine." New York Times. “Ask Many Changes to Election Law.” November 21, 1920.

"As you know, I have been opposed to the extra expenditure of money

New York City democrats strongly suspected that voting machine company owners were Republicans and were in collusion with Republican politicians.

The Sun. “Governor and Vote Machines.” April 1, 1903, p. 4.

Gov. Odell's apologist, the Evening Post, undertook yesterday in its Albany correspondence to explain the Governor's course in making the State Voting Machine Commission inoperative, thus securing a monopoly to the two companies controlled by the Governor's friends. The contrast between the statements of the Evening Post and the language of the law is plain....

The Sun. “Vote Machine Puzzles Mayor.” May 8, 1906, p. 5.

Albert S. Bard, chairman of the ballot reform committee of the Citizen's Union, opposed the bill on the ground that it encouraged straight voting, and because the introduction of the voting machines would tend to delay the introduction of the Massachusetts ballot.

REFS

Roth, S. K. “Disenfranchised by Design: Voting Systems and the Election Process.” Information Design Journal 9, no. 1 (1998): 1-8.

Stewart, C., and S. Ansolabehere. “Residual Votes Attributable to Technology.” (2004).

Voting machines and split-ticket voting

Anonymous. “Praises Voting Machine: Says It Makes Casting a Split Ballot Safe.” New York Times, November 18, 1905, p. 8.

After the Australian ballot was introduced, there was considerable anxiety among voters that, if they were to split their tickets, they would multiply their chances of invalidating their ballots. It was felt to be much safer to make one mark in the circle provided at the top of a party column, which in effect forced voters to vote straight party tickets.

"With a well-made machine a split ticket may be voted with no possibility of invalidating the ballot."

Just what "well-made" means is suggested by the following description of voting machine voting procedures in New Jersey:

New Voting Machines for Hudson County, New Jersey. Evening Journal. October 5, 1903.

The machine is so constructed that the voter, after closing the curtain lever, is unable to open it until, by the pulling of a straight ticket knob, he has indicated a vote for every office to be filled. In States where it is not legal to vote for an entire party ticket by one mark, or one movement, the straight ticket knobs are locked. In voting, the releasing knob, which is below the column of straight ticket knobs, is pulled up until the bell rings, when the individual pointers can be moved over the names of the candidates chosen. A vote is registered for all candidates that have a pointer left over their names when the curtain lever is moved back to the left.

Zukerman, David T. The Voting Machine: Report on the History, Use, and Advantages of Mechanical Means for Casting and Counting Balllots. New York: Political Research Bureau of the Republican County Committee, 1925.

Many of the early models required the voter to turn a party knob and thus cast a straight vote. He could then make alterations in the individual offices if he so desired, but unless he made the corrections the party vote stood. Such measures are no longer necessary for 'splitting.... Nevertheless, the impression left by the early machines has not been wiped out, and the objection is still raised that the voter will floow the line of least resistance, merely running his finger along the party row or column... In New Jersey, at first so eager to acquire them and three years later frantically trying to get rid of them, the oposition went back fundamentally to the party knob. Political maneuvering put them into districts where frequently no desire had been expressed, in the hope of polling a larger party vote. Resentment at the trick and the belief that it did to some extent succeed, was doubtless responsible for most of the other objections, although the necessity of casting a party vote and then correcting it may have justified the complaint that not even a university professor... could tell how he voted.

Voting machines and ballot design

Anonymous. “The Voting Machine.” New York Times, February 15, 1900.

[Another] objection made to the voting machine is that it is adjusted to our present form of ballot, with the candidates arranged in party columns, and not to the form in use in Massachusetts, where the names of candidates for the same office are placed in alphabetical order in the same column and have to be marked separately. This is certainly a merit and not a defect in this State, where there is not the least liklihood of a change in the law prescribing the arrangement of names on the ballot. No one can vote with the Massachusetts ballot, either by the system of marking or by the use of a machine, unless he is able to read; and as there is an educational qualification in that State, it does not impair the constitutional right to vote. In this State, where there is no educational qualification, any method of voting which made it impossible for a person who could not read to exercise his choice would debar all such persons from the exercise of suffrage, thereby imposing a qualification that is not sanctioned by the Constitution.

Voting machines and the machine political

Ivins, W. M. (1906). On the electoral system of the state of New York . New York: William M. Ivins.

We shall find in the voting machine ultimately the best and most perfect remedy for many of the difficulties which we now encounter and most of the evils of which we complain. The peculiarity of the situation, however, is that the adoption of the voting machine is not in the interest of the political machine, and the latter has a voice, whereas the former is speechless! (72)

Concerns about counting paper ballots - a century ago

Ivins, W. M. (1906). On the electoral system of the state of New York . New York: William M. Ivins.

As a consequence [of the unprofessional and politicized system of election inspectors], in some of our election districts in the city of New York, the clerical and mathematical work of the inspectors might just as well be done by a lot of drunken spiders with ink on their legs.... it would be difficult to devise a mchinery that could produce less satisfactory results in the tally and in the cavass of the votes than the existing one" (Ivins 1906: 68-69)

Blake, Henry T. “Distinguishing Marks on Ballots.” New Englander and Yale Review (1886-1892), February 1892.

"[The purpose of the] prohibition of 'distinguishing marks' upon ballots... has been to ensure secrecy in voting, and thus to prevent both bribery and intimidation.... [T]here is a prohibition against placing any special marks upon... [the ballot], whereby it may be known who cast it. .. any ballot which does not conform to ... [these provisions] shall be void and not counted.

Blake, H. T. (1902). Plan to Simplify the Voting System. New York Times, Dec. 15, 1902: 8.

With the use of a blanket ballot provided by the State there is no possible way of voting except by marking on the ballot, and independent voting necessarily becomes a process requiring very careful attention. As the voter never has his ballot in hand except when he enters the voting booth and is obliged to do all his marking during the few minutes allowed him there, the process of independent voting is unavoidably rendered so embarrassing that comparatively few persons can safely attempt it, and of those who do it is inevitable that a considerable proportion will do it so uncertainly or improperly that the vote will not be counted.

Anonymous. “Topics of the Times.” New York Times (1857-Current file), December 8, 1902, p. 8.

We find that of 939,000 ballots which should have been distributed among ... [the candidates for Supreme Court Justices in the First District in the 1902 election], 9,300 were thrown out as "blank" with respect to them all, more than 700 as "defective," and 2,000 as "void." The bosses of both parties will enjoy these figures, as indicating how hard they have made it -- or kept it -- to vote anything except a straight ticket, but to other people the existence of something wrong is clearly demonstrated. ... Indeed, it is probable that the blank, void, and defective ballots reveal.only a fraction of the law's coercion toward straight voting. Unrecorded thousands, though desirous of voting for one or more candidates not of their own party, refrain from doing so for fear of falling into an error that will cost the head of the ticket a vote.

New York Times (1857-Current file). “Advantages of the Voting Machine.” January 22, 1900, p. 6.

[With the voting machine], [t]here can be no spoiled or defective ballots, and no doubt can remain about the voter's intention. He simply votes and there it ends; and his vote is counted and recorded with a mechanical precision and certainty which no human mind can emulate.... There is no chance of dispute over the validity of any vote cast or the accuracy of any computation, no room for disagreement as to figures.

Zukerman, David T. The Voting Machine: Report on the History, Use, and Advantages of Mechanical Means for Casting and Counting Balllots. New York: Political Research Bureau of the Republican County Committee, 1925.

When paper ballots are used there is an enormous loss of votes resulting from defective, spioled, and doubtful ballots. Numerous causes may lead to the rejection of a percentage sufficiently large at times to affect the final results. The ballot may be improperly marked in an attempt at identification..., or it may be due to poor facilities for marking, insufficient light, misunderstanding, or carelessness. There may be a mark of the wrong sort or with the wrong imnplement; it may be outside the proper enclosure, beside the wrong space, or bveside more names for the offices to be filled than called for.... Whehter or not such votes are counted depends largely on the judgment of the officials as to whether they come under the rules laid down for their guidance in the election laws. In one case 27 different methods of marking ballots in contreversy where shown and all were subject to judicial consideration.

Development of the Australian secret ballot in New York

New York's election law prior to the introduction of the Australian secret ballot required voters to deposit printed or written ballots, or ballots that were printed and partially written; however, as Ivins (1906:14-15) points out (no mechanism was specified by which voters were provided with ballots:

We were shocked to think that 20 percent of our voters were under pay on election day; but if the law made no provision for the payment of men to distribute ballots, and the machine found that it is impossible to get the ballots distributed except by their employment at a fair day's wages, no one could complain. Of course, while it was every man's affirmative duty to vote, it was no man's duty to stand at the polls all day and supply other voters with tickets. In like manner, while it was every man's duty to vote, it was no man's duty to make voluntary a very heavy expenditure to supply the ballots with which other men should vote. The party organization, acting as such, whether from patriotic or other motives, volunteered to do the duty which the law assumed would be done somehow or other.

Parties. "The adoption of the Australian ballot system has involved a legal recognition of the political party as sponsor for nominations to appear on the ballot under the party emblem or with the party name."

Lever voting machines vs. paper ballots in Cook County, 1960

Lever voting machines played a role in the disputed 1960 presidential election in that few election irregularities were reported in the precincts using voting machines -- chiefly, by adding considerable weight to the view, held by most Republicans, that direct-recording voting machines are much to be preferred to paper ballots. In 1960, Chicago had 3,771 precincts, of which 634 used paper ballots and 3,137 used voting machines. According to Kallina and Kallina (1988: 91), "[p]ostelection recounts and investigations showed that the most flagrant irregularities occurred not in the voting machine precincts but in the paper ballot precincts." That this was so, they point out, did not seem surprising: "Because of the American faith in technology, there is a strong belief that voting machines are more efficient, more accurate, and less susceptible to fraud than paper ballots.... It was not fortuitous that several organization wards in Chicago, especially the black ones, were equipped almost exclusively with voting machines" (110-111).

In the court-ordered recounts conducted after the election, attention naturally focused on the "automatic eleven"—the wards that could be counted upon to produce among them a plurality of 100,000 votes for the Democratic organization." To no one's surprise, some of these wards revealed tallying errors that favored the Democratic candidates. It was surprising, however, that five of the "automatic eleven" were not found to have made serious tallying errors, a fact attributed to the scarcity paper ballot usage in four of them:

The five wards of the "automatic eleven" that did not display serious tallying errors were the First (the ward most closely identified with the crime syndicate), Second, Sixth, and Twentieth (all controlled by Congressman William Dawson), and Twenty-fourth (Jake Arvey's old ward and traditionally the leading Democratic ward in the city). The reason that the first four failed to rank any higher in net gains for Republican candidates is attributable to a scarcity of paper ballot precincts in them—19 out of 271 (123, my emphasis).

Why were discrepancies more likely to be found in Cook County's 634 paper ballot precincts? According to Kallina and Kallina, the structure of the Democratic political machine all but assured that paper balloting would lead to fraudulent tallying:

Precinct captains had to deliver the vote. If they did not, they risked losing not only their political positions but also their jobs. In an election as intense as that of 1960, one can be certain that great pressure was exerted on the captains. Many, of course, were so competent that they could produce the expected votes without having to resort to illegal tactics. Others used the subtle—and not so subtle—powers at their command to bring in their votes. Whatever the illegalities, they were not easily discoverable or provable. There were, however, some precinct captains who were lazy or incompetent or were unfortunately stuck with a bad precinct or an unrealistic quota. Unable or unwilling to use more sophisticated techniques in their paper ballot precincts, they achieved their quotas by reporting whatever totals they desired.

Voting machines made this tactic much less appealing: "the least likely tactic a cheater would employ in voting machine precincts would be to misreport the machine totals because they can be easily checked" (111).

The court-ordered recount process served to further deepen Republican mistrust of paper ballots. Completed on December 9, the recount ended in controversy. The Chicago Board of Elections, controlled by Democrats, showed that Nixon had a net gain of 943. Examining the same ballots, the Republicans claimed a net gain for Nixon in excess of 4,500.

The reason for the drastic differences was that while the BEC was basically recounting all ballots, Republicans maintained that they were disregarding obviously invalid ballots, which were overwhelmingly Democratic. Adamowski criticized the Democrats in characteristically succinct fashion: "All ballots, valid and invalid, legal and illegal are being treated as valid ballots. Using this method, the board is merely repeating the mistakes and fraud committed by precinct election judges election night. The tabulations being made by the Republican party do not include the obviously invalid ballots." [121]

The Chicago Board of Election's handling of paper ballots provided Republicans with additional grounds to doubt the accuracy of the recount. It was found that more than half of the ballot boxes had no seals, had broken seals, or lacked an election judge's signature. According to a Republican observer, "They've had plenty of time now to make corrections of the ballot" (quoted in Kallina and Kallina 1988: 128).

Refs

Kallina, E. F., & Kalina, E. F. (1988). Courthouse Over White House: Chicago and the Presidential Election of 1960. University Press of Florida.

Voting machines and political machines

Voting machine inventors and supporters have long seen the devices as a technological intervention that is expressly designed to reshape elections -- specifically, by undermining the influence of another type of machine -- the political machine, epitomized by New York City's Tammany Hall, seen by its critics as "profoundly illegitimate and even criminal" (Shefter 1976: 284). Like political machines elsewhere in America's burgeoning Gilded Age cities, Tammany was a "non-ideological organization," which was "interested less in political principle than in securing and holding office for its leaders and distributing income to those who run it and work for it" (Scott 1969: 1143). What alarmed Tammany's critics was the machine's efficiency in transforming "fuel" -- Irish, Jewish, Italian, and other non-WASP immigrants -- into "energy" -- namely, the "reliable and repetitive control" (Scott 1969: 1143) it exercised over voters in its jurisdiction (Banfield and Wilson 1963).

Just how Tammany established its machine-like control is, however, disputed by scholars. Tammany's critics believed that money held the machine together; in the absence of regular payments, patronage appointments, and other material considerations, the machine would not have been able to turn out so many loyal voters. What's missing from this formulation is the possibility that, in the eyes of its supporters, the machine had developed "a system of rule that was at once reasonably effective and legitimate" (Scott 1969: 1143). Commenting on this point, Schefter (1976) notes that a system that could transform "grog shop owners" into aldermen attacked the existing, elite political order and, for immigrants, offered a profoundly enticing answer to the question, "Whose country is this anyway?" Even so, as Schefter notes, this explanation alone cannot account for the growth and consolidation of Tammany's power during the 1890s; rival political machines could offer the same brand of legitimacy to immigrants -- and they did, until Tammany finally defeated its rivals in the early 1890s and established a pattern of domination that endured until the 1930s.

What facilitated Tammany's transformation from one of several competing factions to the City's undisputed ruler, according to Schefter, was the extension of "political clubs" throughout the city, which served to institutionalize Tammany's identity as the Democratic political organization in New York City. Unlike Tammany's earlier ward offices (staffed by roughnecks) and meeting places (saloons, generally), political clubs had their own clubhouses and, by means of "excursions and clambakes," drew wives and children into their activities. Modeled on Henry Purroy's successful organizating methods in one of the City's most suburban wards, the Annexed District, political clubs helped Tammany extend its political base throughout the city, bringing upwardly mobile, second-generation ethnics into the mix. At the same time, the clubs provided the means to discipline leaders with considerable personal followings but uncertain loyalty; one had to join a Tammany club, and establish a long record of loyalty, before receiving Tammany's support. The result was a formidable ethnic coalition that, by 1888, transcended class divisions and enabled Tammany to crush its factional opponents (Schefter 1976).

The political organization that emerged in the late 1880s, and dominated the City's politics until the early 1930s, differed significantly from the weakly institutionalized Tammany of Boss Tweed (who was forced to fork over considerable sums of money to gain supporters) and his successor, Honest John Kelly, whose efforts to improve Tammany's image by introducing an element of fiscal conservatism deeply angered followers who expected patronage rewards. Tammany's new political clubs generated loyalty, not by providing payoffs and patronage, but rather by providing upwardly mobile ethnics throughout the City a venue by which they could establish their respectability and the legitimacy of their claims to full citizenship. As Schefter tellingly notes, "the descriptions and photographs of Tammany's clubs... resemble nothing so much as accounts of the functions of organizations such as the American Legion or the Elks" (1976: 295).

Not long after Tammany managed to transcend its former, poorly instutionalized and narrowly integrated organizational style, Republicans and reform Democrats succeeded in establishing the Australian secret ballot and voting machine, both of which were intended to undercut Tammany's rule by making it difficult for political machines to buy votes: thanks to the secret ballot, vote buyers would be unable to determine whether the compromised voter followed through by voting in the desired way. The secret ballot was first used in a New York City mayoral election in 1897, but it had little effect on Tammany's control. It seems likely that, as a political intervention, the secret ballot (and later, the voting machine) was aimed at a practice (vote buying) that was no longer crucial to Tammany's rule.

Refs

Banfield, E. C., and J. Q. Wilson. City politics. New York: Vintage, 1963.

Schefter, Martin. “The Electoral Foundations of the Political Machine: New York City, 1884-1897.” In The History of American Electoral Behavior, 263-298. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1978.

Scott, J. C. “Corruption, Machine Politics, and Political Change.” The American Political Science Review 63, no. 4 (1969): 1142-1158.

Rampant election fraud in New York City's golden age: fact or fiction?

As it's conventionally told, the story goes like this: In the 1880s and 1890s, as industrialization and immigration fueled explosive urban growth, urban political machines -- typified by New York City's notorious Tammany Hall -- engaged in rampant election fraud in order to control municipal governments, which they systematically looted. Middle- and upper-class "Mugwump" reformers, mainly WASP Republicans and reform Democrats, brought about key reforms, including the Australian secret ballot (intended to prevent vote-buying by making it impossible to tell whether the vote seller had performed his end of the bargain) and lever voting machines (intended to prevent vote-counting shenanigans as well as vote-buying). As a result of these changes, political machines stopped trying to buy votes and, by 1912, election turnouts had declined from up 80-90 percent in the 1880s to 50-60 percent. It's therefore assumed, based purely on anecdotal evidence, that (1) "election fraud" must have been widespread and (2) by stopping it, the reforms sharply reduced the incentives for uninvolved voters to show up at polling places, and they stopped doing so.

It's a nice, neat story, oft repeated, but there's just one problem: Beyond the rapid growth of cities due to urbanization and immigration, there are good grounds for doubting all of the story's claims:

1. Was "election fraud" really rampant? What do we mean by "election fraud"? If "election fraud" was rampant, was it rampant only in cities?
2. Were "Mugwump" reformers really responsible for key election reforms, including the secret ballot and lever voting machine?
3. Did political machines really stop trying to manipulate voter turnout after the reforms?
4. Did election turnouts decline because the machines stopped buying votes, or for other reasons?

My thinking is evolving this way:

1. Depends on what you mean by "election fraud." See below.
2. Reformers raised the issue, but state and national political party elites took up the Australian secret ballot and lever voting machine causes because it served their interests. I'll explain the evidence for this in subsequent posts.
3. Heck, no. Instead of paying their own voters to vote, they paid undecided or opposing voters to stay home (see, e.g., Cox, 1981).
4. For other reasons, including changes in voter registration laws and, especially, changes in nomination rules, ballot design, and voting machine configuration that made it very difficult for political machines to field their own, local slate of candidates and, to top it off, exposed them to attacks based on "fusion" tickets, where a single candidate appears on more than one party's slate.
   

Allen and Allen (1981) differentiate between "serious" acts of election fraud -- practices that violate the rational will of the individual voter (e.g., preventing a properly registered person from voting or disqualifying a properly cast ballot) -- and "less serious ones," those that manipulate election processes for political ends or that amount to a "quid pro quo"). Nearly all the practices denounced by 1890s reformers fall into the "less serious" category. What's more, as was pointed out at the time (as I've discovered), these practices could be found in rural areas, too. What bothered the reformers, essentially, was that, when practiced in New York City with very large numbers of voters involved, these "less serious" forms of "corruption" could alter the outcome of state and Federal elections. With its two, evenly balanced parties, New York had been a swing state in elections where the New York margin was only a few thousand votes.

How common was vote buying in New York City during the 1880s and 1890s? I don't think the machine needed to compensate its loyal retainers, unless it was on the skids for some reason. The money would have been used to pay off "floaters" and "colonizers," who would make themselves available on election day to impersonate registered voters.

What about "serious" election fraud, the type that violates the rational voter's intentions? It is widely assumed that such practices were common in New York City, and of course Tweed admitted that Tammany would "count the ballots in bulk, or without counting them announce the result in bulk." However, some scholars believe that Tweed engaged in election fraud, not because his machine was so strong, but rather because it was so weak. Furthermore, it makes no sense that political parties would have invested such huge sums in printing ballots, distributing them, and rewarding voters if the counting process was meaningless. In addition, most urban political machines (including Tammany) had competitors, including competing political machines, Republicans, and Democratic reform organizations, who watched the ballot counting process keenly. Finally, Tammany would not have suffered several famous reversals -- such as the defection of German and Jewish voters after Tammany nominated an Irish Catholic for mayor -- if the counting process was fundamentally corrupt.

Still, the rampant fraud narrative, fueled by anecdotal evidence, lives on (e.g., Campbell 2006). But it's dangerous to fuel this narrative. Today, as it was in the 1890s, there are political gains to be made by exaggerating the scope of election fraud based on anecdotal evidence and pinning the responsibility for fraud largely on Democrats (see, e.g., Fund 2004) -- and to the extent that the exaggeration can be sustained in the absence of reliable empirical evidence, the results -- including voter ID laws -- will disproportionately impact African-Americans, Hispanic, and the poor (Schultz n.d., Tokaji 2007).

Allen, H. W., & Allen, K. W. (1981). Vote fraud and data validity. Analyzing Electoral History: A Guide to the Study of American Voter Behavior, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, 153-193.

Campbell, T. (2006). Deliver the Vote: A History of Election Fraud, an American Political Tradition-1742-2004. Carroll & Graf Publishers.

Fund, J. H. (2004). Stop, Thief! Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. National Review, 56, 56-58.

Schultz, D. (n.d.). Less Than Fundamental: The Myth of Voter Fraud and the Coming of the Second Great Disenfranchisement. Retrieved November 12, 2007, from http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=david_schultz

Tokaji, D. P. (2006). The New Vote Denial: Where Election Reform Meets the Voting Rights Act. South Carolina Law Review, 57, 689.

Lever voting machine to elect next president! (Hoover or Roosevelt)

Thanks to Modern Mechanix for posting these wonderful scans!

Mechanical lever voting machines -- early history

I've been working through the chronology of early mechanical-lever voting machines. Here are a couple of sources that I've found helpful.

Bragdon, G. C. Notable Men of Rochester and Vicinity: XIX and XX Centuries. Rochester, NY: D.J. Stoddard.

U.S. Standard Voting Machine Co. -- As the voting machine of this company, only recently introduced, is rapidly revolutionizing the methods of voting, a brief account of its evolution may be found interesting. Jacob H. Myers is the pioneer voting machine man, and to him belongs the credit of breaking the public into the use of voting machines. His were successfully sold for about five years, when they began to give place to machines of the present type, which are improvements on those originated by S.E. Davis. The Davis macyhine was positive in its action throughout, used two-step counters, locked both keys and counters from the turnstile, and had the form of interlocking system made interchangeable by H.C.H. Cooper, which still remains the best that has been produced. A.J. Gillespie brought out the movable counter frame, which simplified the operating mechanism of the machine; also invented the pull-back key which enables a voter to change his vote and correct mistakes, and practically did away with the cumbersome booth by making a movable curtain do its work in a much more satisfactory way. He also added a number of important inventions on details whcih keep both the inventor and machine from going wrong, and with his improved machine many uniformly successful elections have been held. About one-fifth of the voters of New York State are now voting on the improved Gillespie machine made by the U.S. Standard Voting Machine Co., which company owns all the inventions referred to. Mr. Gillespie's improvements of the voting machine in 1901 won for him the medal of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia for the most important invention of that year.

Appletons' Annual Cyclopædia and Register of the Important Events of the Year: 1900. (1901). New York, NY: D. Appleton and Co., pp. 761-762.

VOTING MACHINES, mechanical devices used in place of paper ballots in elections, which also count and add the votes cast. Some operate by the deposition of balls or disks,some by perforations in a sheet of paper, which are afterward counted, and others, of the self- registering type, are supplied with an indicator adjacent to the name of each candidate, which is operatively connected with an internal mechanical register—one for each candidate. In this last type of machine the voter makes his selections by placing the different indicators in position to signify his choice of all the candidates, and by the subsequent operation of a lever or turnstile registers his selections as indicated.

According to the present election laws in force in the United States, a voting machine must be so constructed that it enables a voter to cast his vote in secret; that it counts positively each vote cast; that it permits a voter to make such selection among the candidates as he wishes—for all of one party, or in part for those of one party and in part of those of other parties; that it permits the voting for persons nominated by any party, and at the same time prevents voting for candidates in excess of the number to be elected; that it be convenient in its operation for the voter, with little instruction, and so constructed that it may be arranged for use by unskilled persons; that it be so constructed that it will not become inoperative during an election ; that it be so arranged that the blind and illiterate are able to operate it without assistance; that it will permit a voter having made an error to change his vote while in the booth ; that it will permit voting for or against questions or amendments; that it will permit the voter both to indicate and register his own vote, and place it beyond the power of any one else to deprive him of it; that it will permit limited voters, women and certain nontaxpayers, to vote for certain candidates and on certain questions, and at the sanie time prevent them from exceeding their privileges.

The Myers machine consisted of a steel booth 5 feet square anil 7 feet high. The voter entered by a door, which was closed, and found names of candidates arranged in the form of an Australian ballot upon one side of the machine, and opposite each candidate's name a push knob, which the voter pressed to indicate his choice. Then by his passing through a small vestibule and out of an exit door, the mechanical counters of the candidates he had chosen were actuated and the machine was arranged for the next voter. The Myers machine was first used in April, 1892, and for a few years following, with some success, but for some reason the manufacture was discontinued in 1898.

The United States voting machine, manufactured under the S. E. Davis patents of 1894 and 1895, is arranged to be used without the aid of a booth, the face of the machine being turned away from the publie, and screens at either end of the machine rendering the casting of the ballot secret. In this machine the party nominations are arranged in horizontal lines from left to right, and below each candidate's name is a small pull knob, which is connected with the counter for that candidate, and at the left of each party line is a large knob, the pulling of which will vote a straight party ticket. The ballot may be cast by first pulling out a party knob and returning the knobs of such candidates as are not to be voted for. and in their stead knobs pulled out for such candidates as are desired. Or the voter may, ifhe wishes, operate the individual knobs without first pulling out the straight-vote knob. At the close of the election the fronts of tne counters are exposed to view, and a record is taken of the result. This machine has been in use in Hornellsville since 1896, and lately in Jamestown and Syracuse, N. Y., and Detroit, Mich. This was the first machine to fulfill completely all the requirements of the present election law.

The Standard voting machine, patented by A. J. Gillespie, of Atlantic, Iowa, in 1897, is about 4 feet square and 8 inches deep, and is supported by legs, the top being about 6 feet from the floor. The ticket is arranged upon the face of the machine in the form of an Australian ballot, the party nominations being in vertical columns, with a numbered pointer at the left of each candidate's name and a large lever at the top of each party column.... To vote on this machine, a straight-vote lever is pulled down, which turns a pointer over the name of each candidate in that party. Should the voter then desire to split, he can do so by turning back any of the individual pointers and in their places turning others over the names of the candidates he wishes to favor.... The Standard voting machine was first used at a city election in Rochester in 1898, and since then it has been adopted in Buffalo, Utica, Ithica, Elmira, Auburn, Oswego, Niagara Falls, Rome, Poughkeepsie, Hudson, Johnstown, Gloversville, and many towns. In no case where this machine has been adopted has there been a return to the paper ballot.

Wallace, Henry E, ed. (1901). The Manual of Statistics: Stock Exchange Hand-Book. New York:Charles H. Nicoll, p. 557.

U.S. STANDARD VOTING MACHINE CO. A corporation formed under the laws of New York. December 14, 1900. The company was organized to manufacture and sell voting machines. It purchased the patents, plant and good will of the Standard Voting Machine Co., Rochester, N. Y., and the United States Voting Machine Co. .Jamestown, N. Y. The company now controls the manufacture of the only voting machines ever used in a Presidential election other than in an experimental way, and the only machines that have been used with success in successive elections in the United States. The United States Voting Machine Co. was organized in 1894. The Standard Voting Machine Co. was organized in 1898. At the Presidential election on November 6, 1900, 442 machines made by the two companies were used in various cities and towns of the State of New York, including Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica and Elmira. Stock $1,000,000. Of the capital stock 6,000 shares or $600,000 were issued to the Standard and the United States Cos. in payment for their patents and good will. An amount of 4,000 shares or $400,000 were offered for subscription at par in December, loco. The company has no funded debt. President, Arthur C. Wade, Jamestown, N. Y.; Vice-Président, Henry A. Strong, Rochester, N. Y.; Treasurer, Carl F. Lomb, Rochester; Secretary, Daniel B. Platt, Rochester. Directors—Henry A. Strong, Edward Bausch, Gustav Erbe. Carl F. Lomb, Daniel B. Platt, Charles Van Voorhis, Rochester; Frank E. Gifford, Arthur C. Wade, Jamestown, N. Y.; Alfred J. Gillespie, Atlantic, la. Main Office and transfer agency, Rochester. Registrar, Security Trust Co., Rochester.

Empire Voting Machine Co. Incorporated March 25, 1908. Directors, Gustav Erbe, Carl. T. Lomb, and Daniel B. Platt. Rochester, NY. $2 million capital. NYT (March 27, 1908).

Voting machine sabotage -- a century ago

Philadelphia Inquirer. “Vandals Wrecked Voting Machine. Objecting to Installation of Apparatus Somebody Put it Completely out of Business.” November 2, 1908.

"Extreme measures were taken by someone in Clementown township, Camden County [PA] to get rid of the voting machine that was placed at Kirkwood.... Some time early yesterday morning the small structure in which the machine had been placed... was broken into and the intricate apparatus was effectively put out of commission.... all the levers had been wrenched off. In addition, the delicate mechanism had been tampered with to such an extent that the machine, which cost $500, could not be operated. Since the installation of the machine in Clementon township, there have been many expressions of dissatisfaction. There were declarations that the old style ballot box would either be used or the machine would be put out of business."

Steele, William H., and Charles Elliott Fitch. Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York. The Argus Company, 1900, p. 85

Mr. Schumaker -- ... There are men with their hand-screws in their hand that can brea into any iron window. They can put powder into a safe and the can have an explosion that you cannot hear, and they can manipulat any kind of locks that you can put on a safe and break the all to pieces and make them entirely useless. I remember onc I saw a celebrated burglar. He says to me: " You have a farm u the North river?" I said: "Yes." "You have a barn on th place?" I says: "Yes." "Well," he says, "you had better tak that lock off the barn " (the lock cost me fifteen dollars). He says: Take it off. I can go there with an ice pick and with two or thre raps I can knock it all to pieces." There was another man on th railroad that could stop the bell on the fare register so that it woul not punch. Now, men not only have to ring a bell, but to clic something in their pockets. Sometimes they don't click. Th registers in the saloons and in the taverns all over the country ar beaten by the barkeepers. I remember in Washington when the put in a machine at Schumaker & Hertzog"s place (a namesake o mine), the head liquor mixer resigned. He would not stay. Bu finally, after a while, he came back and said he was going to try it After a while he was discharged for dishonesty. He found out th machine and the employers found out him and they discharged him.

Voting machine usability issues -- lever machines

Wilkes-Barre Times. “Voting Machines Failed.” November 6, 1904, p. 4.

"Trenton, N.J. tried voting machines last week, but they did not work well. In fact, they worked very badly, in more than one particular. The sounds given out by the machine indicated whether the voter was voting a straight ticket or a split ticket, and more than one election board was on the qui vive to discover the fact. As the name of the voter was known, the secrecy of his ballot was absolutely destroyed. Moreover, as the machine records the votes in numerical order, it is a matter of easy discovery, by the number on the poll lists, just how each man voted, and so subject the voter to the surveillance of the party workers. Besides these technical defects of the machine, their working was in the direction of hampering the voter. In one election district, one of the oldest and most respected citizens was deprived of his right to vote because he could not master the methods of voting in the minute allowed him. The same thing happened to four citizens in another district."

San Jose Mercury News. “Beaten by Machine. Santa Clara Candidate Who Thinks Voters Pushed Wrong Button.” April 12, 1904.

"While it has been claimed that it is not possible for a candidate for office who is voted for by the new voting machine, to be beaten by the contrivance, one of the candidates in the recent election at Santa Clara [CA] declares, it is understood, that he was beaten by the voters not knowing how to operate the device. It seems that this candidate -- one of the trustees -- had his name at the bottom of the list. It is necessary to push the contrivance above each name and not below. It appears that about forty voters pushed the button below this candidate's name instead of above it, and there were forty votes on a blank."

Kallina, E. F., & Kalina, E. F. (1988). Courthouse Over White House: Chicago and the Presidential Election of 1960. University Press of Florida. Retrieved from http://www.netlibrary.com/AccessProduct.aspx?ProductId=20771

Without question, voting machines were the greatest source of the confusion and chaos. The machines had been introduced in Chicago in large numbers only in the 1950s, and by 1960 many [83] voters still had difficulty operating them. Further complications arose because many election judges were unfamiliar with the machines, and some who did understand were unable to explain the operation to voters. The process by which a voter split his ballot on the machine was especially mystifying, and only a dedicated and venturesome voter dared to attempt it. This combination of voter ignorance and official inability or unwillingness to explain how to use the voting machine encouraged straight ticket voting. One observant and thoughtful poll watcher remarked upon this situation:

"The voting machine is much too complicated for the average voter to operate. In the precinct where I personally vote most of the people are professional people, and yet many of them were confused by the machine. In the precinct where I poll watched most of the people were barely literate, and they were completely bewildered and almost scared of the machine. The demonstration model looks so different from the inside of the real machine that the model is of negligible help. The result of this confusion in how to operate the machines is that these barely literate voters have to rely on the judges to such an extent that unscrupulous judges could easily influence the voters on who to vote for. Inthe precinct where I poll watched the judges fortunately were essentially fair in their instruction, although they did everything but pull the lever for most of the voters. The disadvantage of the complexity of the machine was compounded by the presence of party levers. Practically every voter where I poll watched pulled the party lever, and I am convinced that in most cases the reason was that of the judge's explanation of the machine's operation, the only way to operate it that the voter understood was that by pulling the lever he could vote for Kennedy and the Democrats and by pulling another lever he could vote for Nixon and the Republicans"

Many mishaps ensued, some of them humorous in retrospect, because of the difficulty of mastering the voting machines. Some voters stuffed paper ballots in the lever slots. One watcher recorded that ''Voters would get in the voting machine and not know how to get out. They would call for help."In one instance a man named Deen established himself in the voting booth and re- [83]fused to vote. Finally, he ducked under the curtains and headed for the door, paper ballots in hand. Observing this peculiar behavior, the poll watcher was informed that this person had "done this every election.

Voting machine fraud -- a century ago

Philadelphia Inquirer. “Township Elections Throughout the State. Voting Machine Goes Wrong; Election Void.” March 3, 1904, p. 8.

"One of the new voting machines went wrong here to-day. When the election board opened it to-night it showed a total vote of 738, while the polling book showed that only 401 votes were cast. All four candidates for Council had 369 votes each, although they were paired against each other. This will make the election void. The trouble appeared to be due to some experimenting with the machine this morning before the polls opened. The borough clerk and some members of the election board had a wrangle this morning and the police had to be called to quell the disturbance."

Charlotte Observer. “Election Board Did the Voting. Worked Voting Machine, Registering 200 Votes-Didn't Need Repeaters in That Precinet.” March 26, 1915, p. 1.

"Exploits of Joe Jeffers... and his specially selected election board in the Taylorville precinct [Terra Haute, IN] were described today at the trial of the Terre Haute election fraud case in Federal court here.... 'Not a single repeater appeared at the Taylorville precincts,' said Charles Yakle, a member of the special board, who has pleaded guilty. 'We didn't need them.' Yakle then explained that Jeffers brought to the board a list of names which the clerks wrote on the election books and that members of the board then took turns registering them on the machine. With one or two exceptions the votes were straight Democratic, he said. The Government contends more than 200 such votes were counted in the Taylorville precinct.... Witnesses also told of the assault by Jeffers on Judge John E. Cox's special deputies who had been sent to arrest him and members of the board and one of the shooting which occurred. 'To hell with Judge Cox, I'm running this precinct,' Mrs. Minda Morgan, a watcher at the polls, testified Jeffers said. "Jeffers then proceeded to show that he was truthful,' she said."

New York Tribune. “Machines Tampered With. Erie Republican Committee Offers Rewards for Convictions.” November 4, 1909, p. 3.

MACHINES TAMPERED WITH.
Erie Republican Committee Offers Rewards for Convictions.

Buffalo, Nov. S.—The Republican County Committee has offered a reward of $1,000 for the arrest and conviction of every man who fastened a rubber band to the face of any voting machine used in yesterday's elections. The rubber bands, it is said, were fastened to the Siegrist pointers in such a way that they prevented them coming down when voters pulled the Republican lever, thus making their vote for Mayor blank. That the device was net used to any great extent is shown by the fact that the total vote for the Republican and Dernccratic candidates for Mayor is practically the same as that for Kengott, candidate for Overseer of the Poor, who was on both tickets. Although the Republicans failed to a Mayor, they were successful in thirteen out of the sixteen offices on the city and county tickets, and retain control in the boards of Aldermen and Councilmen.

Voting machine paranoia -- a century ago

Some examples of paranoia about "jiggered" voting machines from the 1890s to 1920s...

Steele, William H., and Charles Elliott Fitch. Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York. The Argus Company, 1900, p. 87

Mr. J. I. Green -- I believe that anything that is invented by man can be controlled by the sam agency. And I do not believe that the people of this State hav arrived at that point where they will care to trust their franchise to the regulation of a machine. I believe if the machine were introduce and in operation, the man who invented the machine could if he saw fit, control the operation and the working of the machine We have all seen and read of the time-locks, which are used by great many banks and other institutions throughout the Unite States; and we know the degree of protection to which that loc has been carried; and yet we know that those locks are locked an unlocked, and I say to you, Mr. Chairman, and delegates assembled that I see no reason why, if a machine of this kind be i operation, or be used by the people of a city, the same inventio and ingenuity which is used to control these time-locks might not be used to control the machines which we shall have to use to record our franchises.

New York Times. “Ask Many Changes to Election Law.” November 21, 1920.

Asked his opinion of voting machines, Mr. Voorhis said he did not believe they had been perfected yet. "When we can get a machine which will show to the voter that his vote has been recorded according to his intention, I would be inclined to favor its use," he said. "Unless we can get a machine which will do this and not compel him to take the recording of his vote on faith, I am opposed to the machine."

The Sun. “A Fox Trap for Voters.” April 24, 1908, p. 6.

In the course of the debate on this measure Mr. Palmer of Schoharie, the Democratic leader, said that no one who went in and pulled the lever of the voting machine knew whom he voted for or whether he had voted at all. ... A strong argument against the voting machine was made by Colonel David C. Robinson of Elmira, son of the late Governor Lucius Robinson, who gave the Assembly a bit of his personal experience. We quote from the report of the debate: "Mr. Robinson - .... [A] voting machine is about as much use as a fox trap. Now I am not talking about what I don't know. I sat alongside a special team which examined the result of the ballot machine in the county of Chemung, alongside of one of the ablest Supreme Court Judges, a Republican and a lawyer and an honest man, and we voted that machine from the back side precisely as it had been alleged to be voted from the front side on election day and discovered that every time the machine was pulled ten times on the Republican column it voted ten, but every time it was pulled ten times on the Democratic column it voted four."

Lexington Herald. “Easy to Beat: Linotype Operator Demonstrates That Voting Machine Can Be Worked.” November 2, 1905, p. 6.

"The voting machine to be used at the coming municipal election November 7 was given a test yesterday before a committee representing the Fusionists, as it had been claimed that it was possible to beat the machine. A linotype operator on a newspaper showed that by placing a small rubber band in a certain place near the name of the Fusion candidate for Mayor, the machine would not register for the Mayor, though it would for all the other candidates. An expert representing the machine company and a half a dozen newspaper men were unable to make the machine register while the rubber band was in place."

San Jose Mercury News. “Politicians Find a Way to Beat the Voting Machines.” November 1, 1905, p. 1.

"San Francisco election commissioners have discovered a way to beat the new voting machines.... It was thought for a long time that the voting machines would entirely do away with all possibility of manipulating the result of an election, but it seems that the same human ingenuity which can devise such a machine can also find a way to get the best of it. One disadvantage of the machine is that no voter fully understands its mechanism, and as a consequence he always has the suspicion that he may be robbed of his vote. With the old style system he marked his ballot, folded it himself and dropped it in the ballot box. Later on after the polls closed he might come back and watch the election judges take out and count the folded pieces of paper in the box. This was some satisfaction. Now all the voter can do is to look wise, pull the lever and trust to a system of levers and cogs to count his vote on the level."

Morning Olympian. 1905. Exposed by Printer: Linotype Operator Springs an Election Sensation. November 3, p. 1.

"It required the mechanical keenness of an old-time typo and linotype operator to set the entire city a-flurry by showing how easy it is for a man behind the screen to upset all the safety-valve ideas of protection of public ballots when registered on a voting machine. A little band of rubber did the trick.... Now there is the biggest row on that has happened in the political arena for many moons.

Kansas City Star. 1913. Easy to Beat Voting Machine. Expert Showed in Chicago Simple Way to Commit Fraud. Aug 1., p. 6.

"Additional ways of tampering with a voting machine were pointed out to the Butte legislative committee by Prof. C. E. DePuy of the Lewis Institute today. The witness produced a 'wire clip,' a 'bent wire,' a piece of 'angle steel,' and an ordinary rubber band, any one of which, he demonstrated to the committee can be placed on the face of the machine in such a way that only an expert can detect it. With these simple devices the will of the people of the entire city, he said, might be defeated in the registration of ballots.... [He also demonstrated] five ways in which the election officials might tamper with the inner mechanism...."

Aberdeen American. “Voting Machine is Not Infallible Election Contest in Indiana Based on Claim Machine Registered Wrong.” February 5, 1912.

"A peculiar case relating to election laws and voting machines is to be tried out in the suit of Jesse G. White against W.A. O'Harra, sheriff of Delaware County [Indiana], which came up for trial in the circuit court here [Muncie, IN] today. White, a Democrat, is seeking to prove that he was elecxted sheriff in November, 1910, instead of O'Harra, his Republican opponent. It is generally conceded that White actually was elected by a majority of 89 votes, a voting machine registering 100 more ballots for O'Harra than were cast. O'Harra maintains his right to the office on the ground that the Indiana law provides no method of going behind the returns indicated on a voting device."

San Jose Mercury News. “Any One Could Win Election. Remarkable Statement of an Election Judge.” November 18, 1904.

"Yes, the victory was a sweeping one but if you will place me in charge of a voting machine I can make it elect any candidate on the ticket, regardless of whether he be a Republican, Democrat, or Prohibitionist.... I was a judge at one of the San Jose precincts and closely observed the machine work and that observation leads me top say that the voting machine will elect the man or party it is 'geared' to elect."

New York Times. “Voting Machine Bid, $399,500, Rejected.” May 16, 1922.

Commissioner Hirschfield continued his inquiry into the matter of voting machines during the day, examining Jacob Gerling of Rochester, a former Alderman of that city.... It had been the experience of Rochester that through the use of voting machines a large percentage of people "failed to vote. They go into the machine to cast their vote, but it is not recorded," he said. "At least 10 percent. in some cases don't vote for anybody, although the go into the machine to vote. We in Rochester are against the machine, because we are compelled to vote blindfolded. While we have never charged Republicans with fraud in connection with these machines, we always have been suspicious, because since the machines were installed we have never been able to elect a Democratic mayor, which we used to do occasionally."

Just what does "election fraud" mean?

All accounts of voting machine history assume, uncritically, that urban election fraud was rampant in the years prior to the voting machine's invention (1888) and first use (1892). In so doing, they've bought into the perspectives of reformers, including voting machine inventors themselves, who were understood to be principled, middle class citizens concerned with the corrupt practices of urban political machines. Alexander Keyssar's The Right to Vote (Basic Books, 2000) rightly questions whether the history of election fraud can be comprehended by accepting the reformers' rhetoric at face value -- particularly when it's realized that reformers expressed "thinly-disguised" disdain for "poor, working-class, and foreign-born voters" (159). Was election fraud as rampant as the reformers believed?

The available evidence doesn't enable a definitive answer, Keyssar notes. Certainly, some election fraud occurred, judging from the memoirs of politicians who acknowledged election irregularities. Still, most claims of rampant election fraud are based in "sweeping, highly emotional allegations backed by anecdotes and little systematic investigation or evidence" (159). Moreover, election fraud, to the extent that it occurred, was by no means monopolized by urban political machines. Coercive pressures to vote the right way came from neighbors, employers, and corporations, too, and may have been widespread in rural areas.

The deeper question, though, is what's meant by "election fraud." Tellingly, reformers believed that all of the following amounted to corruption at the polling place:

• Paying people to get out the vote
• Paying undecided or unopposed voters to stay home: "Under the new [secret] ballot law you cannot tell how a man votes when he goes into the booth, but if he stays at home you know that you have got the worth of your money" (New York Times, Oct. 18,1890).
  
• Paying poll taxes so that people could vote
• Voting a straight party ticket
• Voting by government workers who received their jobs through patronage
  
• Voting according to the ward boss's instructions in return for support not provided by public welfare institutions
• Paying voters as compensation for time lost in going to the polls
• "[T]he greatest danger to the suffrage flows from the printing and distribution of ballots by irresponsible political organizations. If these organizations fail to print a candidate's name on a ballot, or substitute, in pursuance of a bargain, the name of his party opponent on the regular party ticket; or if, after having printed, they conclude not to distribute any or all of the ballots; or if in the distribution they replace, in the party bunch, one of the party tickets with the corresponding ballot of another organization -- greater and more far-reaching frauds are accomplished than can be attained by more directly corrupt practices.... These practices are called 'trading' and 'dealing'; and the candidates who are traded and dealt out of an election are said to be 'sold out' or 'knifed.' This 'business' is called by 'supersensitive' people 'treachery' (Bernheim 1889)
  

As Mayfield (1993, my emphasis) acidly comments, "Patronage workers could vote but reformers charged that these people were not free to vote their conscience in the spirit of public civic virtue, but voted only to keep their jobs. Reformers never explained how they knew that these protoges of the machine secretly supported them.... The middle- and upper-class antiparty ideology came from concerns that the mass parties of the late nineteenth century mobilized the wrong types of people to participate ill politics. Individual voters were supposed to participate ill the public good by using reasoned debate over policy rather than using the system for their own material gain. Whatever interfered with this exercise was an obstacle to good government, and strong allegiance to parties was the chief problem" (81-2).

Contemporary references to election fraud

From Myers (1901), History of Tammany Hall:

• Repeaters. "Cart-loads of voters, many of whom had been in the country less than three years [in 1827], were used as repeaters in the different wards. An instance was known of one cart-load of six men voting at six different places" ( 87). "About two hundred roughs were brought from Philadelphia, in different divisions, each man receiving $22... after having voted in as many wards as possible, each was to receive the additional compensation of $5" (140)
• Stuffing the ballot boxes. This term is used to refer collectively to the use of repeaters and voter intimidation (88).
• Ballot tricks. The National Republicans, moreover, had sought to bribe certain men with the promise of offices, and on the three election days they foisted upon the voters a Jackson electoral ticket containing forty-three names, instead of the legal number, forty-two, thereby invalidating each of these ballots voted. This trick, it was calculated, lost to Jackson more than a thousand votes.
• Canvassing delays. "In some wards canvassing was delayed until other wards were heard from."
• Use of colored tickets to identify votes (141).
• Paupers and prisoners brought out to vote (140-141).
  
• Violence. "In one of the polling places of the Nineteenth Ward, the Wigwam's candidates for Alderman and Assistant Alderman were counted in after a mob invaded it and forced the Whig inspectors to flee for their lives. When the votes for the Assembly ticket were counted 532 were announced, although there were only 503 names on the poll list" (184)
• Destruction of ballot boxes. " At O'Connell's Hall, on Mulberry street, a crowd, seeing that the result was unfavorable to their side, split the ballot boxes and threw them into the street" (228).
• Spurious names in registry books. "In the Third Ward 63 fictitious names were registered in a single election district. Five hundred of the 3,500 names of the Twelfth Ward register were found to be fraudulent. In the Seventeenth Ward 935 names on the registry books were spurious, no persons representing them being discoverable at the places given as their residences. An Irish widow's two boys, six and seven years old respectively, were registered, mother and sons, of course, knowing nothing of it—and so on ad libitum. Fictitious names, accred ited to vacant lots or uninhabited buildings, were voted by the thousands" (234)
• Sale of offices as a method of organizing a party's primary convention (243)
• Illegal naturalization (250)
• Prizes offered to precinct captains (329)
  
  
  
• Naturalization mills. "For six weeks [in 1868] the naturalization mills worked with the greatest regularity in the Supreme,Common Pleas and Superior Courts, producing, it was estimated, from 25,000 to 30,000 citizens, of whom not less than 85 per cent. voted the Tammany Hall ticket" (250-251).
• Distribution of funds for electioneering purposes. "On October 30 [1868] Tweed
  announced to the general committee that "at 10 o'clock to-morrow the money for electioneering purposes will be distributed" and that those who came first would be served first. The chairman of the executive committee spread forth the glad tidings that there was $1,000 ready for each election district. There being 327 election districts, this made a fund of $327,000 from the general committee alone, exclusive of the sums derived in the districts themselves from the saloonkeepers and the tradesmen, whose fear of inviting reprisals by Tammany officials made them "easy marks" for assessments" (260)
  

"Cases of fraud and violence had hitherto been frequent ; but nothing like the exhibition at the primaries and polls in November, 1827, had ever been known.

• "Fraud was common. No registry law was in force to hinder men from voting, as it was charged" some did, as often as twenty times. On the other hand, 80,000 tickets purporting to be Democratic, intended for distribution by the Whigs, but not containing the name of a single Democrat, were seized at the post-office and carried in triumph to the Wigwam. Tammany once more had full control of the city" (Myers 1901: 190)
  

References

Abram, C. B. (1889). The Ballot in New York. Political Science Quarterly (1886-1905), 4(1), 5-29.

Bernheim, A. C. (1889). The Ballot in New York. Political Science Quarterly (1886-1905), 4(1), 5-29.

Keyssar, A. (2000). The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books.

Mayfield, L. (1993). Voting Fraud in Early Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24(1), 59-84.

U.Va. Scholar Traces Voting Technology Controversy to the 1890s

For more than a century, voting machines have helped shape American political history.

The chaos of the 2000 presidential election in Florida demonstrated the crucial role that voting machines played in shaping the outcome of that election. But Bryan Pfaffenberger believes there is value in understanding that the interaction between technology and culture has been going on for more than a century.

Pfaffenberger, a historian of science and an associate professor at the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science, is studying the history of mechanical-lever voting machines. His research focuses on the machines' introduction in New York State in 1892 to 1925, when the technology was employed throughout the state.

"There's an almost exact parallel between the debate we're having today concerning electronic voting machines and the equally divisive, but completely forgotten, debate that greeted first-generation voting machine technology in the 1920s," Pfaffenberger says.

By showing how first-generation voting machines enabled national party elites to reduce the autonomy of localities, Pfaffenberger is helping to resolve a long-lasting controversy among political scientists and historians about who was responsible for the sweeping electoral reforms that characterized the 1890s.

A recent, $27,000 grant from the National Science Foundation is allowing Pfaffenberger to pursue archival research on the topic. Already, he has found that scholars have all but ignored the history of voting machines, which he finds surprising given our politically obsessed culture.

"It's almost as if this subject wasn't even explored until the 2000 presidential election," he says. "After that, voting technology suddenly mattered to folks."

Why is Pfaffenberger's current research focused on New York? Not only were voting machines first used in upstate New York, but also the Empire State led the nation in adopting voting machines. In 1927, 80 percent of the votes cast in New York were cast mechanically; the nearest competitor, Indiana, used voting machines in only 20 of 92 counties.

Pfaffenberger's study has already turned up some surprises.

It's well known that, throughout the United States, the decade of the1890s was roiled by ballot reform — specifically, implementation of the Australian or secret ballot, a process marked by controversy. Election districts had to choose from three different Australian ballot designs, each of which had differing implications for the balance of political power between local political interests — including the likes of New York City's notorious Tammany Hall — and national party elites.

In New York, unlike the rest of the country, the Australian ballot was implemented largely on voting machines, not on paper. New York's voting machines embodied a design that strongly favored the interests of national party elites while undermining local political autonomy. Because the design was mechanically embodied, and could not be easily or cheaply altered, national party elites strongly backed the machines — and local political organizations, including Tammany Hall, strongly opposed them.

Pfaffenberger's study is part of a larger Democracy and Technology program that he is developing with colleagues in the University's Department of Science, Technology and Society — an initiative that has already sparked several cross-University collaborations and additions to the curriculum.

"It's fitting that this initiative is underway at the university Thomas Jefferson founded," says Pfaffenberger. "Jefferson strongly believed that engineers need to be good citizens; today, the need is greater than ever, so it's important for science and engineering students — indeed, students throughout the University — to reflect on how technologies shape our democracy."

More than a century after issues of electoral reforms were first raised, the controversy over the presidential voting in Florida continues to reverberate. Earlier this year the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would require every state to use paper records permitting voters to see that they had correctly cast their votes. At the same time, electronic voting systems used in California were shown to be vulnerable to hacking.

Clearly, the role of machine voting technology will continue be front and center, not just during off-year elections but especially as the 2008 presidential election nears.